


Like A Dog

by MurielJones



Series: Like a Dog [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Castration, F/M, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Medical Kink, Virgin Sam, Wincest - Freeform, voluntary castration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-10
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-01-04 06:55:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 55,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1077927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MurielJones/pseuds/MurielJones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam has himself castrated;  Dean is horrified and confused.  Sam is emotionally out of his depth--there is thinking things through...and really really thinking things through.<br/>They work through it, and their feelings for each other as they head into the American West to investigate a haunted horse barn.  Mentions of Sam/Jess.  Starts out as pre-slash and well, ends up much more than that.  Bobby and John weigh in on the matter...that doesn't go all that well either.  In part - before I got distracted by the kink - a look at USAmerican working class masculinity....at least as defined by external viewers.  Considering the castration is voluntary I wouldn't quite classify it as mutilation...but that might be my kink coming through.  Story is set immediatly S1 E19 (Provenance).  </p><p>--------------------------------------------------------------------------</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Driving West, toward Kansas:

I am leaning against the window of the impala, deciding if pretending to sleep is worth it. Dean could turn the music up right about now, which he isn’t. I close my eyes, Dean will know the difference, but at least he will know I don’t want to talk.

 

“You’re allowed to be with someone Sammy.”

 

I know he expects me to respond with ‘just too soon’ or ‘not right now’, or ‘the right thing to say’, whatever that is. I keep my eyes closed.

 

“Sammy.” His voice is warning, and I know he is looking over at me.

 

I open my eyes and look briefly at the ceiling of the impala. I glance at him, letting my head roll against the window. His eyes are fastened on the road ahead; his grip is too tight on the steering wheel. He knows this is about something more than Jess, and god, loosing Jess is more than enough.

 

Sam pulls one of those bitch faces of his as he looks over at me. At least he stopped pretending to sleep. For someone who always wants to talk about everything he hasn’t said a word about what happened, didn’t happen, with Sarah.

 

“Sammy, talk to me.” 

 

Dean is looking over at me while he is driving god knows how fast down a dark deserted highway to god knows where. There is pull to his lower lip, anger or concern, it’s hard to tell in the half-dark.

 

“I need to tell you something.” And my stomach flips over, as much as when I first made the decision, as much as when it was finally done.

 

He looks relived; his face opens up, his hand on the wheel relaxes its grip, he pats my knee. “There we go, that’s my Sammy, ready to talk like a girl.”

 

I look out the window, I don’t know if he could have picked a worse thing to say.

 

“Dean,”I swallow. He looks at me, dammit I wish he would stop ignoring the road, with a frown, his Sam I am Genuinely Concerned About You Face. His eyes are so green in this light, and I can’t look at him and say this. I deliberately look out the window and raise my voice slightly so I know I will be heard, “I had myself cut.”

 

“Cut?”

 

I glance at him. He glances back at the road, and then turns back to stare at me with his Sam I am Going to Get to the Bottom of this Face. I see the glimmer of realization, maybe anger. I am too nervous to read him well. What if he doesn’t get what I did? what I had done? what if I have to lay it out? use the word? 

 

“Like a dog?”

 

God I nearly smile at that. I swallow and nod, I’m not going to be talking now.

 

“Castrated?” 

 

Oh, god, the word.

 

“You had your balls cut off? Like a girl?”

 

Now what he says earlier hits him. “Sammy, I didn’t mean it, you know,” he awkwardly reaches a hand out—I wish he would steer with one or the other, maybe even both.

 

“Girls aren’t men with their balls cut off.” It was bitchy, it came out bitchy. I look across at him, straight at him, hoping this isn’t some sort of end for me and him. “I just thought you should know Dean.”

 

“Do you want be a girl Sammy?”

 

I can’t answer. “Dean.”

 

“Or did you have, you know, cancer or something, down,” he waves his hand at my, not his, my crotch. 

 

God, I think Dean is going to cry. “Sammy, man,”

 

“It was a choice.”

 

I turn up the music.

 

So Sammy was a bit off, a lot off. Not with the case, but with Sarah; and I knew wasn’t just about Jess, and it is too much for him already when it is about Jess. I knew already this is some piece of serious Sam shit; the more serious his Sam stuff is the less he talks. This one was going somewhere, and I knew it wasn’t anywhere good. Then he tells me, crap, I kinda wish I hadn’t pushed, and I can’t figure out what the hell I’m meant to say. Man, Sammy, I tried the obvious questions, I don’t know what I’m meant to ask, ok? Sammy, that’s all good, you didn’t need those anyhow? Is that what I’m meant to say? It’s ok Sam, you’re still a real man to me? What the hell am I meant to say? My little brother has his balls cut off like a dog, because he wants to? Not even a dog wants to, especially not a dog. Sammy, what in the hell were you thinking? You can be ok with it if you like, just don’t expect me to be. I can say that when we stop for gas again.

 

I get out and pump the gas, and he goes into the store buys pie and whatever men without balls eat, and crappy coffee. He doesn’t seem all that different, not considering. Aren't guys, like that meant to get fat? We get back in, like hell I’m going to let him drive, like hell I’m ever going to let him decide anything ever again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean and Sam set about working on a case involving ghost ponies. Their relationship remains tense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My history of the Council Grove area of Kansas is compromised and incomplete to keep the story moving, in both this and in subsequent chapters.

**Two days later in Kansas:**

 

I’m looking over the newspapers, I don’t like Kansas, I’d like to keep going—I don’t like Palo Alto anymore either;  I wonder if these places eventually add up until you settle the last place you have left.

 

“Hey.”  Yep, that’s Sammy, jumps out of his skin every time I talk, as though he never expects me to talk to him again.  “What’s up?”

 

“Nothing.  Looks like there might be a job near Council Grove.”  Of course, I should have told Dean about this job, definitely, because I want to stay in Kansas.  He hasn’t talked to me other than to ask me to hand him beer, or tell me he’s going to shower first, or send me to book us into the motel, to get the snacks at the gas station, or to tell me change the mullet rock tape in the Impala’s cassette player, or to remind me to not fuck up the laundry;  mainly he’s only talked to me to tell me to do things, which is still pretty much normal for him. 

 

Well that’s nice Sammy, I try to talk to you and all you talk about is business.  You might owe me an explanation, but now you’re never talking to me about anything other than ghosts and guns again.  You may as well be at Stanford if you’re going to pull this cutting me out shit—again.  But yeah, job, that’s what we do, “So what is it?”  I really don’t want him to go back to Stanford, I don’t think I could take it if Sammy was out of my sight—probably because he does such dumb things. 

 

“Stud barn, looks like it might have a ghost, poltergeist, vengeful spirit, definitely something, probably our kind of something.”

 

 “Stud barn huh?” Dean smirks, leers, that’s more of a leer, Christ, it’s like he’s still thirteen.  Really he looks like a ten year old boy making his first dirty joke, he looks too happy for what our life is now;  I wish he could have been that ten year old boy, its Dean’s life that has never been fair;  no matter what bull-shit I’ve said to him, in-part because of all the shit I’ve said to him.

 

“For god’s sakes Dean.  Really?”  And, it’s a little weird to be not so into this stuff, not that I’m totally not, just, Dean is a little over the top sometimes.  “That’s disgusting.  And it’s a _horse_ breeding barn…”

 

Sam can be such an ass, balls or not, he’s an ass—do I really have to think about that? Ever? Ever? Again? “Hey, Sammy, putting words in my mouth…”  That pissed-off-nine-year-old-found-a-frog-in-his-bed face makes all of it worth it.  Not that it was me that did that to him.

 

“Whatever, Dean.  Bar-H Ranch breeds cutting horses, worth shitloads of money.  Stallions got out, bred some local mares…” – Dean looks pleased, on their behalf. – “…were found and rounded up; then a month later again; and then three weeks later, and again—“

 

“Yeah, Sammy, not stupid here, I get the general plan.”  Sammy thinks he’s suddenly cleverer than me since he went off to college, but hey, I’m _seriously_ not stupid here – he’s the one who does dumb things.  “So, what makes this ours?  Horses could have let themselves out, you hear stories about that all the time?  Kids prank?  Pissed off neighbor? Competing barn?  All good reasons.”  I don’t think Sammy likes Kansas anymore than I do, so I’m pissed at him for finding a half-assed reason to stop moving.

 

“All the time?”  I smile at Dean, he’s such a bull-shitter, he probably only heard one story about a horse letting its companions out of the barn—ever.  No matter what he thinks his serious look doesn’t make anything a fact.  The others are good theories though, other than then next thing the local paper says.  It’s been ‘locally owned since 1892’, and includes stories about the Jones’ new baby, and the number of calves ‘come too early last spring’, rodeo seems bigger than football here the “Emporium High” has a team;  looks as if rodeo is all that happens, beside missing horses, and new babies and preemie cows.  Great.  I’m totally going to fit in.  We can get Dean a hat, and he should be fine.

 

“Sammy, you better have a good reason?”  Where does that kid go in his head?  I wish I could get in there;  apparently there’s some pretty shifty stuff going on, given what he’s had done.  Did he seriously manage to startle again?  He looks down at the newspaper.

 

“Seems an enterprising reporter, that would be the only – and now late - reporter, went and staked out the barn.” 

 

“And?”

 

“Next morning the horses were out, and the reporter was dead, two hoof prints on his chest, kick apparently stopped his heart.”

 

“Still not our thing Sam.”  I am so going to make him prove it beyond a fucking doubt before we stay.

 

“The print was made by the hind feet of a horse without shoes.”

 

“Again, so what?  Horses kill people all the time right?”  Stallions kill I learned that one on PBS.  “Sam?”  Does he have to try to read and talk at the same time?  He is so intent on reading, just like when he was little and still learning, and he was so into it already then – he still looks adorable.

 

“Oh, right.”  I look up at Dean standing behind me, leaning over to read the paper, in case for some reason I forgot how to read and got the story wrong;  I’ve been reading for 17 years Dean, I think I can do it without your  help by now.  “The barn horses have shoes, says they work them.  And it says the print was a ‘zero-zero-zero’, whatever that is?” 

 

“Hoof size, triple-aught shoe size, something that small should be a pony.”  Apparently it comes in handy to watch RDF in the middle of the night. “Any cutting _ponies_ in the barn Sammy?”  Sam pulls a bitchy face and shakes his head, apparently ‘it doesn’t say’.  I realize I just argued Sam’s point, or the facts argued Sam’s point really.  “Ok, we’re staying here.”  And because I don’t want to, I add, “Just to check it out.”

 

Good, Dean agreed to stay here.  Why do I think that’s good at all?

 

 

* * *

 

 

 Sammy insisted we dress-up in – stupid – newspaper reporter getup; he probably makes us do it because he knows he looks great in a suit.  We talk to the manager, Melissa—god is she hot—Melissa McClain. Seems Sam’s type, confident, totally in charge of the situation – even when it sucks – not easily frightened.  Those horses treat her with respect, and so would Sam.  Melissa tells us that she, personally had closed all the gates, locked the barn, and padlocked the stalls; cameras were always on at night, and now night-and-day and  - breakthrough - cameras were on when the reporter, Hayes, was killed.  Melissa made copies of the disks for us, and offered her help to _Sammy_ in reviewing them. She continued her story:  The mares in the far barn weren’t freed, hadn’t yet been freed, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t increased security on their side; Melissa handed those disks also to Sam in a pointed way, that made me want Sam to take a good long assisted look at them.  Does he really not notice?  Is that because of his, you know, thing?  So I figured that I should just set them up or something.  Sam was never good at pick-ups anyhow.  Go to the bar with the both of them, and meet someone and leave?  That could work.  I know what she sees, Sam is an attractive man, gentle, thoughtful, soft spoken, passionate, built, likes to think he’s really cleaver, he can be selfish, but she can find that out later, there’s that other thing; what she doesn’t know can’t hurt her?  So, perhaps that might be an actual problem _?_   When Sam asked her about other security measures though, she avoided the question.  Told us it was the same basic security that all the barns had.  Sam might want to go back and follow up on that.

 

Dean is such an ass.  I don’t know really, maybe if I had ever been normal I would be like him.  I like the way I am. Melissa is the kind of woman who might be ‘my type’, it’s not her fault I’m not interested—but she does live in Kansas.  I can take these disks to the hotel, look up some local history and review the disks with Dean.  Or he can go to the bar if that’s what he wants, but we both know it’s just a setup, and he could just as well come and help.   He keeps trying to figure out ways that I can pick her up – as though I need help with that.  It’s more complicated than usual, sure.  I hadn’t really planned on explaining it to anyone, it was me and Jess then.  I don’t think Melissa bought it that we’re from the Weekly World News.  My type isn’t one night stands, Dean could try getting to know someone, all those little things before he jumps into bed with them.  It’s knowing, loving, those quirks that make relationships work: Dean takes the bed near the door, no arguing; he loves to drive, but if he is worried about me he lets me instead; unless he’s really-really worried and then he won’t let me, and his favorite band has _always_ been Bon Jovi, he’ll _always_ deny it; he hates shopping for boots – so he gets super pissed off when he ruins them, and he always ruins them, he thinks that hustling pool is a real job – so don’t try to stop him; and Dad is his religion and that sucks for him.  So he can try to talk us all into going to a bar tonight, and slip away—as if I don’t know that trick.  But, seriously Dean, have you never noticed I don’t do on-the-fly-hook-ups?  You ever think that things might always have been more complicated for me? 

 

Sammy won’t come to the bar, and Melissa won’t come because she doesn’t want to leave the barn, which admittedly makes sense, but Sam could take a hint, help her watch out for scary things – or just come along and talk things over with me.  I don’t want to look like a complete ass, so I end up sitting at the bar, pretending I planned talk to the locals, pretending I actually wanted a beer alone.  Some guy comes over to me, big guy, six foot four, makes me think of Sam.  (Did Sammy grow again?)  The big guy asks if I’m one of the reporters from the Weekly World News, and I’ve had a couple of shots so I think I probably am, so I say ‘yeah.’;  and he says he has something to tell me.  He has the same fox-slanty eyes as Sam, you don’t see that much, it looks mysterious maybe hot, but he cuts of that thought by telling me he used to be foreman at a local ranch, and there have been problems there also.  I should be paying better attention to what this guy saying, it would be easier if Sam had agreed to come with me. Why Sam would rather do research than come out with me?  But, yeah, right, the job:  so what was this guy saying?   

 

In summary, as I told Sam later:  James Belmont had moved back to Council Grove from Oklahoma as a young man – because this is traditional Kanza land, and because there was no work in Oklahoma for him.  He found work as a loper, riding green horses out for the trainers.  James worked several barns, and moved on, because he was scared at first, and then because he was forced – all because of the same thing:  the stallions were getting out.  He adds to his story from there, eventually it won’t just be the stallions it will be the mares, not just out, but bred, and when the foals come they look to be ponies; and the foals are shot under cover of night, or sold off in slaughter lots, or set to run free on what used to be common land.  But none of them kept in the barn ever.  And he makes the sign of the cross, to ward against what follows.  The ghost ponies are, for the first time -  he pauses to check if anyone else is listening – the ghost ponies are even in the barns that use hexing—adding ‘that would now be all of them’.  He touches an amulet around his neck, I wonder if I should get Sammy one of those things.  The he adds:  no one will hire a Kanza hand around here.  I buy him another one.

 

I slap him on the back, offer my other hand, and sign off with a “Night, Jimmy.”

 

“It’s James.”  He says.

 

* * *

 

 

“So, waddya think Sammy?”  He doesn’t raise his head, he’s so intent on starting at his laptop.  He’s so far away an amateur could murder him.  “Sam!”  He looks up from his daze and jumps.  A half empty bottle of Jack is set next the bed where he is propped up, too damn drunk to sit up by himself.  Trust Sam to drink alone rather than come out with me.  Maybe its Jess related despair; I wonder what she thought about the whole thing.  Why do I have to keep thinking about that?  I shove him over a bit, sit down mostly next to him, so I can read over his shoulder on the bed, no other reason.  _Seriously Dean?  You did not just think that._

 

Dean manages to shout at me about everything, everything—he must think he’s Dad; can’t even come into the room without frightening the crap out of me.  I think he still thinks I should do the manager to prove that I’m still a man, or something—maybe to prove that I’m still a something.  And, quite seriously, I don’t need to prove something, or anything.  And he must seriously think he’s Dad, because he’s plenty damn drunk again.

 

Back to the job though, that’s why we’re here.  “Looks like a case, for real, Dean.”   I’m speaking clearly, mostly, probably, he’ll never notice anyway, I didn’t think he’d be home until morning.  And it does look like a case, because the further back I looked in the archives, thank god for feminist researchers seeking out and recording women’s history of Kansas, I could barely find other on-line written records, the further back there were more stories about the ‘ghost ponies’.  Maybe I hacked an academic database, I didn’t learn nothing in College; and I broke the law—Dean will be proud of me. 

 

I tell Dean the quick version of the story:  Been happening ever since settlers started breeding horses here.  First the loose stallions, then loose mares, then bred mares.  The foals largely destroyed, or turned loose.  Some were kept; the horses with the crossed lines were sensitive, sensible, and bold, and could be trusted with children--women choose to keep them.  Others of the white settler women had claimed the horses had cursed by the Kanza, and set up magic of their own, some of it quite powerful judging from the hexing sigils carefully re-drawn by these university women. And now there were all these old hexes laying across the land, and old buildings that had been the site of violence, and slaughter.  I wondered why anyone would ever live in Kanzas.  The white settlers living in poverty brought upon them by a disinterred government, cattle companies, lack of skills, and their arrogance; the buffalo gone, the coyote gone, the grasslands gone, the fields turned to dust in the depression, the Kanza driven from their land by the settlers and the government.  Look what happened to our family, why in the fuck did we even want to spend a night here? 

 

“Do you miss them?”  I ask Sam.  I’m drunk, he’s plastered; I can ask that kind of thing.

 

“The Kanza?”  God, Dean asks the strangest questions; he must be more mothered than he seems.  Then I realize what he really means.  I should probably lie, say something like ‘its let me be who I am’, or ‘its how I thought it would be’ or ‘no, why would I’.  Maybe I should tell someone, I still try to tell Jessica; and sometimes the person I tell needs to be Dean, and I wish I could tell him, and trust him with it, like when I was six.  I wish I could say ‘Sometimes.’ And wish I could tell him the truth, which would be ‘Sometimes, yeah’.

 

Sammy pushes up against the side of me—same as he did when he was a little tyke, and he was scared.  And when he mutters – he does that when he’s really drunk, and he thinks he’s only talking to himself - ‘sometimes’ and then ‘yeah’ I want to drag him onto my chest like I did then. 

 

I’m not whispering to Dean in the dark, I can’t be; not like I did when I was six and he was ten;  like when I thought my world would end if it wasn’t for Dean;  like when there was nothing safe except Dean, Dean, Dean.  And it’s not like it would take it back, I would do it again.  I can hear my own heart beating; I want to push my head against his chest and hear the assurance of his.  I want to tell him:  I needed to do this, I had to do this, it might weird you out but this is normal for me, it’s part of the normal I needed.  But there are things I didn’t expect, changes I didn’t expect, they might have told me, but I didn’t understand what it meant;  and I was meant to do this all with Jess, and I have to do it alone.

 

Sam is mumbling against my neck, and all I really catch is ‘Alone’.  I rest my chin on his stupid hair for a moment; he never seems to know it, he never has to do anything alone.  I tug his shoulders over, so his head rests on my chest.  He’s drunk tonight—this won’t happen again.  It feels as though we are kids, Sam vulnerable and wide-eyed and scared, and me not knowing what the hell to do, and just holding on.  


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The quest for the ghost ponies continues. The boys go to the Rodeo, and Sam tries riding a bull. And, oh, first-time. And the porn is integral to the plot...really, honest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not confident writing porn, please bear with me.

This morning was as awkward as all hell.  I woke up with Sammy in my arms, his hair all fuzzy and sloppy in my face, breathing on my chest,  and…fuck it…I had a hard-on.  How did I even get a hard-on with this kind of hangover?  I should probably go take care of it.  Thanks for nothing, morning.

 

This morning was awkward as all hell.  I woke up with Dean holding me, breathing into my hair, my face pressed into his chest;  and great, I had a hard-on—talk about something that hasn’t happened in forever.  I don’t really want to take care of it.  Great, I’m meant to be dealing here.  Thank god Dean went to take a shower.  I can bury myself in my hangover, and figure this out.

 

Yeah, so after a shower, and coffee, and deciding that Sammy would have a fit if I have a nip before breakfast I figure we can divide out tasks and get on with the day.  A little space between us wouldn’t hurt here, figure things out.

 

No run this morning, I’ll do that this evening; a protein drink, coffee, juice, aspirin. I consider taking the hormones I still have hidden in my duffel—would save me all the, some of the, work outs and I don’t really like lettuce, sometimes I would kill for a greasy burger.  Now I wish Dean would get out of the shower, just get on with the damn day.  I don’t feel human enough to work the case, but work has to be done: saving people, hunting things, family business.

 

This is uncomfortable:  otherwise known as having breakfast with the brother-you-snuggled-with-like-a-kid-last-night, and woke up holding this morning (both of you hard) in the local diner.  Sammy probably has no clue what he said to me last night…and I don’t really want to bring any of this up.  Give him some space to work it out, or something.

 

I have no idea what I said to him last night—I probably humiliated myself.  Please let him not have seen me sort of hard this morning.  I can’t possibly ask him what I said —that would only make it worse;  I can’t think of anything Dean would rather not talk about.  He barely talks to me.  He could tease me about this for the rest of my life—which right now I would be ok with being shorter, rather longer.  Dean wouldn’t do that.  Would he?

We sit in silence, no conversation this morning then, I try something practical:  “Sammy,” Does Sam _have_ to flinch every time I talk?  “you go over to Melissa, take those DVD’s back and ask about those hexes, I’ll bet that’s what she wasn’t telling us about the security.”

 

Sam examines his hands, “Uh, I didn’t get around to watching those.”

 

“Ok, so watch them with her then.”

 

Wow, I guess he was just waiting to explode, or maybe it’s the hangover, but I don’t want a scene.  “I. Don’t. Want. To. Do. Her. Dean.”  Did Sam really need to share that with the whole diner?  “Why don’t you give it a shot Dean?  Since you’re such a real man.”  Thanks Sammy, for whatever that means.

 

“I just asked you watch them, and get back to her.” 

 

The look he gives me is priceless, classic bitch-face Sam.  “No Dean, what you did was _tell_ me to watch them, and _tell_ me to fuck her.”

 

Then he flounces his little princess ass out of here. 

 

I hear Dean calling from behind me: “I didn’t _tell_ you to fuck her.”

 

Well, fuck you Sam.  I throw some bill down, ignore the locals, and set off to talk to folks at some of the barns James mentioned.  Sammy can walk his damn ass back to the motel and watch those tapes. I should have I’d told him about the phone call, he will kill me if he talks to Bobby, or Dad, before I tell him, he’ll probably kill me anyhow.  I try Bobby on my phone again, and ring through to voice mail…it’s probably best to try only three lines, I don’t want to look to desperate…I was an idiot, I am desperate.  I try all Bobby’s lines.  On the way out of town I buy a cowboy hat, local flavor, help me fit in.

 

Yeah, so it turns out that a hat doesn’t open doors around here, but James does.  I’ve been to about five places…apparently everyone heard about ‘the boys from the world-news’.   I stop in at a bar outside town, rumor has it that serves good burgers, and James stops by not long after.  He sets himself down next to me at the bar counter, and smiles contentedly. 

 

“Haven’t found a thing out have you?”

 

Burgers and fries and a beer or two and we are off to the rodeo.  Friday means local rodeo night.  And apparently James is the man to be seen with at the rodeo.  Not that anyone is talking to me anyhow, but as we walk by the various paddocks and pens and trailers at the fairgrounds James just nods toward the hexes drawn onto doors, and sometimes stamped into saddles and bridles.  Every once in a while someone greets James or asks him a question about an event or a horse…or betting.  I could get in on that.  What started out as research has become an afternoon of beer and betting.  I start wondering if I should tell Sammy where I am, and I start praying he hasn’t picked his phone.  He could have called Bobby with a research question…that would suck, seriously suck, he would call me if he was that pissed off, wouldn’t he?  Maybe he’ll never talk to me again.

 

I watch the tapes, and come up with an answer as to why Melissa didn’t call the cops on these—the relevant points on the tape, including the death of our intrepid report, are all snowed out;  but I can see hexes on the stalls and in the rafters.  I can’t really say much more than, yep, paranormal, and yep, nothing for a civilian to see, and effectively, yep, no news.  Melissa definitely didn’t want us to know what was going on.  She didn’t tell us the whole deal, so maybe I’ll just ask her the full story when I go around.  Oh, wait, Dean fucked off in the car, and I get to sit in the motel room until he’s good and ready to come back here.  My phone rings; maybe it’s him.

 

James has walked off to check a horse with a spavin or puffs, or a high-bone or something.  Do these people actually speak English?  So I’m sitting around, enjoying my hat and some good company when I realize that I probably should actually do some researching.  It’s just that everyone shuts down immediately when I ask about the stallions:  yeah, they heard of that, saw it in the papers, pity about that reporter guy, must be hard on his family, but, generally ‘they don’t know nothing’.  I am about to continue with my quest when James re-appears and claps a hand firmly on my shoulder, seems he needs to go and look at a horse on the other side of the fairgrounds (might be ready for today, might not) and it turns out he really thinks I should go with him.  I really should call Sammy.

 

It’s not Dean, at all, which is good, very good—because he is the last person I want to talk to;  not because I’m pissed at him, I’m over that, with Dean I have to get over those things but because I still don’t know what to say to him about last night.  I haven’t had a hard-on, or what passes for it, in months, since Jessica, since my body really changed—and I get one when I’m sleeping with him.  Do I even _want_ to understand that?  It’s Melissa calling, and she is coming into town and can she pick up the DVDs;  and I say I haven’t watched them yet, and she says she’ll watch them with me, so I say:  Let’s do that, why don’t you swing by here.

 

Not ten minutes later Melissa arrives with Chinese take-out ‘best Chinese around Emporium’ and greets me with:  “I hear you don’t want to do me?”

 

I examine my bare toes, and briefly glance up at her; I try to hide behind my hair and smile.  That’s right; I don’t want to do her.  Then she smiles, and shrugs and adds: “I don’t want to do you either.”  I’m so relieved.  “And, no you didn’t mis-read me earlier, but it wasn’t a pick up, it was just an ‘I think I might enjoy you’.”  And now I full on smile at her, and I sort of didn’t intend to, because well, I maybe looked forward to seeing her even if it wasn’t with _that_ as the plan.  “Is your brother really an ass?”

 

I laugh out loud.  “Yes,” I pause, “No,” pause, “Not really.  He just doesn’t do well with women.”  I try and explain, “He does well with women, just not in,” why am I getting myself into this mess trying to explain Dean and women, “he doesn’t really date women, he just” pause, “meets them?”

 

Melissa looks amused, “By which you mean fucks them?”

 

“Huh, oh, kind of, yes.”   Great, now I’m trying to rationalize Dean and women, “We’re not in a place to form emotional attachments, we move around too much, we only really spend time with each other.”  Then I realize what I have implied, and Melissa looks amused, in a happy way, not an un-kind way at all, at my fumbling.  So I try again:  “Dean doesn’t do sex and emotions at the same time, it just keeps him from getting caught up in things he can’t finish.”

 

“And you?”  she asks as she opens cartons and hands me chopsticks and sits down as though she owns the place; or as though she rents the place.  She seems to think the better of her question, and adds “I’m sorry, it wasn’t mine to ask.”

 

I need to answer this question sometime.  “I don’t do that.”  That wasn’t a great answer, even I don’t know which ‘that’ I intend.

 

“Please don’t answer Sam.” She lets me off the hook, “I came to watch tapes with you, I can show you things you can’t see and the police won’t.  Your brother talked to James, so you probably know some of the story that comes with.”

 

“You are an idiot.”  I want to protest to James that only Bobbly gets to call me that.  But I am an idiot, I’m sure Sammy would agree with that assessment, first James pointed out the obvious…well it was obvious to him, but somehow not to me…that a ‘strange pretty boy’ (he actually called me that) asking questions wasn’t going to be getting much of anywhere;  and that maybe by shutting up I would do a better job of fitting in.  And then, to deal with the fitting in thing I bet that I could ride a bull for the full real-deal-cowboy-rodeo 8 seconds.  I’ve never even sat on one of those things.  When I took that bet was when James called me an idiot again.

 

“Rodeo it is.”  Melissa declares.  She had covered most of the history with me, seems like she and James had done their own research, and ‘all we had to do was ask’ and they would have filled us in; although I’m not entirely sure on that.  We conclude there is nothing doing tonight, and that what we should do about it can be left until tomorrow, or even, since it seems no one else is dying, till Sunday, Monday.   It was nice to kick back, and hang out, and not to have to deal with Dean all the time, and what Dean thinks, and what Dean needs.  Anyways, she said we could go out to her barn and ride out tomorrow if we liked, she has some ‘guest horses’ but which I take it she means horses for idiots.    I can ride, well sort of, Jessica thought it was a good idea to take lessons.  We were going to have horses when I was a lawyer and she was staying home with the kids, and we would all ride, and we could go on pack trips on the weekends.  Jessica wanted kids, I wanted kids.  Yeah, well rodeo it is.

 

And there we meet James trying to manage a very exceptionally exceedingly drunk Dean;  and drunk Dean has bet that he can ride a bull.  Sober Dean can’t ride a horse.  Great, fucking great (this is why I love you so much) Dean.  James is attempting to act as a consultant to hopeful young cowboys, while mostly holding up Dean.  Melissa, between looking worried, is laughing out loud.  I don’t know what comes over me, Dean can be such a jerk sometimes, and it’s his ego that got him into this thing, but he saves me over and over again, and I owe the guy—no I didn’t have anything to drink, I just really think that.  I tell Dean I’ll do the ride for him.  The look on his face, the utter bewilderment, is perfect and he has no choice because he can barely stand, so he has to give in;  now all that’s left is for James to convince Dean’s newly acquired cowboy pals that the bet is still fair.  They must be nearly as drunk as him—they agree to a deal, me for him.

 

Yeah, well, if Sammy thinks he can do that, good for him, you go for it Sam, you can do it, hell, you’re Sammy, you can do anything.  He really can do anything, he’s such a silly sometimes, but Sam can do anything, he could have been a lawyer or a doctor or something.  He went to college, and it’s my fault he left.  Melissa – her name is Melissa, right? – tells me to shut up.  Damn, I wish I had, I kind of thought I had.  Hey, Sam’s still talking to me…he couldn’t have talked to Bobby, or Dad.  Dammit, if Dad finds out about this thing, he’s going to find out about Sammy and it’s all my fault.  How the hell did I get so drunk? 

 

“Sammy?”  I seem to have been set down in a chair.  “Sammy?”  He beams at me, “Sammy?”  That smile is enough to make the bull itself fall in love.  “Sammy?”  He puts my hat on his head and ruffles my hair.  “Thanks for doing this for me, I know I’ve been an ass…” 

 

“Don’t thank me Dean.”  Sammy grins.  “Just watch in wonder.”  Where does the little ass-hat get off being so cocky, bastard sounds just like me.

 

Riding a bull must be up there with the dumbest things I have ever done.  Right near the top.  And like most of the other dumb things I’ve ever done, I’ve done them for Dean.  The guys are just about wetting themselves laughing, more than one of them offered me a ‘last beer’, and giving me conflicting instructions.  Basically one leg on each side, one hand up, one hand holds, and stay up there for 8 seconds—oh, and don’t die.  Just another day for a Winchester, do whatever it is and remember not to die. 

 

“Sammy! Sam!  Fuck it Sammy!”  I never get sober so quickly as when Sammy gets hurt, and this time he looks good and proper hurt…there’s a monster or two out there that would be jealous of that bull’s moves.  And one of those moves entailed standing on Sam.  I’m on the floor with him, in less than the eight seconds that he did actually stay on the bull.  He rode the damn thing, Sammy rode the thing.  I’m not entirely sober.  “Sammy.”  James is pushing me out of the way, Melissa is holding me back and the rodeo medics are there.  I can hear them ‘Sam can you hear me?’  And Sam must say ‘yes’ because they ask him more things. He’s alive, I breathe slowly, don’t open my eyes for a minute, Sam is alive, he is breathing, now is not a time for me to fall apart.  If he was answering _me_ he would probably have said ‘no’ just to mess with me. 

 

“Dean?”  These damn medics can go fuck themselves, or someone more interesting, I don’t really care.  All I want right now is Dean.  “Dean?”  They keep asking me questions.  I give them the summary:  I’m not getting in any ambulance, I’m not going to the hospital, I can move my limbs, I know my name, I don’t give fuck if there is something that _might_ be broken, there’s not much blood anywhere, I can breathe; I do not want you touching me, I want you not touching me.  “Let me go home with Dean.”  Not that there is any home other than Dean, but I can’t explain that them, I can’t actually explain it to him; it doesn’t make sense to me, I did hit my head.  But fuck it hurts when I try to move, I think I’ve bruised my everything.  I struggle to get up.

 

“Wait a moment Sam.”  That’s James, cutting through all the c-and-b, “Sam, just go with them, they just need to check you out, nothing else.”  He doesn’t even bother looking confused, just plain straight up tells Sammy what to do, but without being an asshole about it like Dad.

 

When I refuse again I’ve lost control of the pitch of my voice, I’m frightened and James can tell.

 

“No,” thank god, Dean has caught on, he knows why I can’t, and I don’t want anyone else to know.  “If Sam says he’s good we go home, he comes home with me.”

 

James looks between me and Sam.  “Neither of you lies as well as you think, but if you practice like this you might get better.”  I thought he would be abrupt but instead his voice is sad:  “Melissa and I will drop you boys at the motel.”

 

Yeah, well I guess Sammy did all right.  We made good money on the bet, if James hadn’t been our friend (James is our friend?) there might have been trouble…I think the guys might have thought Sammy and I hustled them.  We didn’t, I didn’t know Sammy could ride a fucking horse, and it turns out Sammy can figure out anything, he figured out how to ride a bull.

 

Dean is fucked up drunk as I am just generally fucked up.  Melissa and James leave.  I thought they were going to stay and tuck us in they were so damn worried.  I’ll be fine, I know I’ll be fine.  “Dean?”  He rolls over on his bed, and faces me.  Then he shakes his head, climbs out of his bed, and climbs back in with me;  it was ok for last night, it will be ok tonight again.

 

I wake up at two in the morning.  I am wrapped around Sammy, and he is pushed back against me, but I can tell from his breathing he is awake, from the tension in his shoulders he is worried, he is good and upset about something.  He should be upset, my cock is, I am, hard and pushed up against him.  I try to move away, but he holds my arms around him.  “Dean?”  My brave cowboy sounds just like the girl he can be.  “Dean?” 

 

“Yeah?”  I whisper back to him.

 

“Can I tell you something?”

 

I want to answer: ‘At fucking last.’  But I go with the more sensitive: “Anything.”

 

“They said I should,” Can you sound embarrassed in the dark? Sam sounds embarrassed in the dark. “They said I should work myself to climax on a regular basis, and I can’t, I just can’t.”

 

I smile into the back of Sammy’s neck, ‘work himself to climax’ really Sammy.  “Jerk off, the good doctors wanted the boy without balls to jerk off?”  Crap, that wasn’t sensitive, but Sammy relaxes anyhow, I guess he really does like it when I give him shit.  “What do you mean can’t?”  Maybe I don’t want to know the answer to that.

 

“Technically,” trust Sammy to get technical at a time like this, “I can achieve orgasm, although, it may be dry, or I might release a minimal…”  I can tell that Sammy feels stupid trying to talk about this. 

 

“Yeah, and…”  I cut him off.

 

“I don’t know how.”  I realize one of his hands is right by his crotch— he’s lying in my arms trying to figure out how to touch himself?  “I’ve never done it before.”  Fuck, Sam spent his teenage, horney-as-all-hell, years without ever?  And Jess, did Jess never?  Sam is a virgin.  Wow.  Fuck. 

 

“Like you’ve never never done anything before?” 

 

And Sam shakes his head into the pillow:  “The only person who touched me there was the guy who cut me, and that was just for, when he, you know, he had to get them.”  He goes on, talking to the dark, and talking to me:  “I was, before I had, I was disgusting like that, I wasn’t meant to be like that.  I thought after, you know, after, I would be able to let her touch me.  But we never got the chance.  That night you came for me that was three weeks after I was, you know.   We were going to try for the first time the next morning.”

 

I took away the only chance Sam had to be with Jess, to have her be his first, to have her teach him.  I’m so sorry Sam. I’m so sorry Sam.  I’m nuzzling the back of his neck.  I _will_ keep myself under control here.

 

I feel the tension run back into him.  “Can you help me Dean?”  There is a long pause in there, “Just tell me what to do or something?”

 

“Sure Sammy,”   I’ve taught him a bunch of other stuff, I can teach him this, “sure I can.” 

 

“Now?”  I say that because he doesn’t move, and he does seem to be waiting.

 

Sammy snuggles into me, “Yeah, if that’s ok, I have,” I know him so well I know he is smiling, “a little problem.”

 

 “Uh,” I start, but I’m Dean Winchester, and I know about guns, and I know about monsters, and I know about sex, and I taught Sam the first two, and this isn’t all that different, is it?  “Sam,” I try and move my crotch away again, but he reaches backwards with a ridiculously long leg, and tangles me in.

 

“Dean?”  Is he teasing me?

 

Yep, I can.  “Take yourself out of your shorts.”  He sort of wiggles his ass me, and then apologizes.  And I tell him it’s ok, but I’m not sure it really is, because this is about him, and my body wants to be about me…and some of what he’s doing isn’t helping.  “So take yourself in a hand, fist, you’re right handed, use your right hand, and tighten it until it feels good.” 

 

I can feel Dean hard behind me, and it feels good, it makes this ok somehow in a way that if it was just me it wouldn’t be.  I wiggle my shorts down to reach myself, and wrap my fist around, and I’m silky and warm in a way I’m not when I’m soft.  He tries to escape, Dean is being a prude, and a reach a leg back and haul him in…he is seriously not going anywhere right  now.  I know from how it felt when I got hard before that is isn’t what it was, I used to get much harder, but this feels better, feels right.  I grip myself in my fist, tighter than I expected I would need before it feels good, before I feel a pulse through me.

 

“Is it tight enough Sam?  If you move slow up and down, careful at first, does that feel good?  If you hold in the middle and move your fist base to tip?  How’s that for you?”  Sam whimpers.  “Just straight strokes, slow and smooth, up and down.”  Given how little he’s been touched, that he’s never been touched, he should shoot his load right about now, and then I realize that not having balls is going to slow him down.  Did my body just respond to that?  What a sick fuck I am. 

 

“Do you ever use?”

 

That’s right, he’s probably super sensitive given he’s never…you know.  Sensitive and going to take forever to come, and don’t know if that the best or worst ever combination.  Yeah, lube.  “Give a minute Sammy.” 

 

He slips away and digs in his coat.  And I feel exposed without him holding me.  “Dean?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Have you done this with a guy before?”  that didn’t come out like I expected it, like I aught have intended it.  “I mean, not like that,” honest, I didn’t mean it like that, even if the only person my body responds to is Dean, “I mean any sex things?  Is this ok?”  Then he is sliding back in with me, facing me this time, and I’ll missed him pressed against my ass, but I like that I can see his face in the glow from the crappy hotel hallway lights.  It’s just comforting to know it’s him, to feel safe, to not have to do this alone.

 

“Hand?”  I thought facing him, keeping my body away from his would help focus me on him not me, but I feel a deep coil of desire pulling at me.  I’ve wanted to fuck plenty before, but nothing, nothing and no-one like this, part of me is cold with want, and my groin is hot, and I need to be touched, I want to be touched by Sammy.  He puts out a hand for lube like  told him, and I squirt some lube in.  “Warm it up.”  He looks confused…I realize his other hand is still on his cock.   “Let go for a second and…”  And he still looks puzzled so I kiss him, just on his forehead.  “Take your time Sam.”  He bends his neck, his face down and away, and it doesn’t feel like a rejection, it looks like shame.

 

I am so ashamed of myself, of what my body was, and of what I have done.  I should have been able to be normal, to make this normal, to make my body work, and I don’t even know how to hold my own cock without nearly freaking out.  I’m asking for advice on jacking off, and I can’t even get that right.  My cock feels a bit weird and almost heavy, and the pulse I can feel from inside nearly echoes in my hand.  I want this to be normal, I don’t want to be afraid of this piece of me.  Dean kisses the top of my head again.  And of everything in the world that makes it better is Dean, always Dean.

 

I try to squirt more lube onto his hand, and he pulls back, so I just squirt it onto mine, and he grabs at my hands, and for a moment we just hold there.  Then he grins, so suddenly, a flash of my Sam, my Sammy, and swats my hands, away, and I swat his, trying to get more lube onto them, “Can’t be too wet, ever, better learn that now Sam.”  He swipes at my fingers with his, grabbing more lube from me, and giggles, he giggles at me.  He still has one hand on himself, so I squirt some lube there too.  Shit, this is not what we are meant to be doing.  I must looked plenty confused because Sammy laughs his shining open mouthed, most beautiful man in the world, dimples are so sexy laugh at me.  And, oh-thank-god Sammy is happy, and I laugh right with him.

 

Oh god, the look one Dean’s face when he realizes he nearly touched me.  He looks so abjectly mortified, and I can’t help laughing at him; Dean Winchester slayer of monsters, seducer of all mortal women afraid of embarrassing himself with me?  But then he laughs with me - and I can let out a breath - and he swipes at my hand again, and I move quick, because no matter what he thinks I’m still faster than him.  And he touches me, his hand palm open touches me for a second.  And my hand rests over his, and brings him to hold around me, “Please?”  Dean always makes me safe, he can make this safe for me.

 

I don’t know, but we are suddenly playing and laughing and Sammy is smiling, and anyhow I end up touching Sam, which I never intended, but I touch him, and he guides me to wrap my hand around him, and he asks quietly, ‘Please?’  This is so close to too much for me, the words for this aren’t words I usually use… honored, privileged…loved that Sammy lets me be the first person to touch him.

 

Dean closes his hand firm around me, I can feel the calluses, the wear from work, from grave digging and guns, the raw strength that is him, the tenderness that is his, his grip is tight and I fit my hand around his.  He nods, and beings to work me up and down, and I get harder, and I close my eyes, as much as I want to look at him the feel is almost overwhelming, I reach behind him and pull him closer, feel him against me, skin to skin.

 

“Sweet Jesus Sammy.”

 

Dean’s hand mimics my breathing, long deep strokes held for a second.  The he reaches his thumb over the head of me, of my, of my cock, and “Sweet fuck, sweet fuck, oh Jesus fucking Mother Mary, sweet god, thank you, again, please ‘gain, please Dean.”  And he uses the pad of his thumb to push into my slit, “Oh, shit, sweet fuck, more please, please, Dean?”  And I’m gasping, I can’t breathe, but it’s a good can’t breathe, and I can feel every piece of me, pushed against him, and I know my mouth is open, begging, and sometimes kissing, and pleading for more of this, for more of what he is doing, for more of Dean.  I feel tight, warm deep in myself, in my groin, in the place where nothing is, and I bury my face in his, and now suddenly I’m scared again, and he seems to know because he shifts us closer, fits us more deeply together, our fists trapped in between, his cock pushed hard against me, his body pulsing in rhythm with how he strokes me.  All I can think, I can feel, I can want is Dean, Dean, Dean; the scent of me, and the scent of him.  Dean’s tongue finds its way into my mouth and soft and warm, and he is everywhere, he is gentle and he is strong, and quiet and good; and all of it is me and all of it is him.

 

He lets me touch him, and find his rhythm, that pressure that makes him feel perfect, this is Sammy, a movement that makes him feel perfectly loved.  I don’t want to get off rubbing myself on him, but he pulls us closer and I’m pushing letting my body follow his slow steady rhythm, getting myself off on being close to him.  I run my thumb over the head of his cock, and sweet jesus fuck is what he needs, I don’t think he’s ever been touched there before at all.  And I have to close my eyes, because the look of want and the look of bliss on his face is about enough to make me come.  And virgin Sam can beg with the best of them. I have to keep myself steady, take our time, this is his first, it had better be the best first ever, but those words coming out of his mouth make me just want to open myself up completely to him, forget everything and give myself to him.  A few strokes later and I run my thumb into his slit, and that is it for him, slowly, sweetly, afraid and seeking comfort, kissing me, allowing me to kiss him, hot, and hard and brave and strong in my arms, pulled as close as I can find a way for us to be, holding me to him, he begins to fall apart for me.  Me and Sam, and I’m so close, and I can feel us tremble together, and ‘want, and love, and need, and you’ and all those things that should never be said being said being said by me and said by him.  Please Sam, come for me, my Sammy, give me this perfect thing.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam talks to Bobby. Dean talks to John. The boys have burgers with Melissa and James. And things never go quite right if you are Sam. True confessions: Small edit since yesterday, I woke up really unhappy with how the chapter ended.

When I wake up Sam is gone.  For a moment I think: _this can’t be happening, he’s done it again._   Then I see a note from him left on his lap-top. ‘Gone running, be right back.’ How the hell he can run after losing his fight with the bull is beyond me, why the fuck he would run on a day off is more of mystery.  Not that we should really take the day off, but as Melissa and James said, nothing doing until Monday.  I would like the day off, work some things out with Sam.  Sam’s phone buzzes on the table, it’s a call from Bobby, I let it ring through, and now I really have to deal, I’ll have to tell Sam.

 

When he comes in he is sweaty and beautiful, and looking a little stiff; that’s what happens when you get into an argument with the bull, and loose, though technically he won.  But now I have to tell him.  He hands me a coffee (there’s a Starbucks in Emporium?) and a scone thing that’s probably good for me, but I’ll eat it anyhow.  What’s the harm in a few more minutes of peace between me and him?  His phone rings again, and he reaches for it.

 

“Wait.”  Dean sounds nervous.  After last night things might be complicated between him and me— _more_ complicated between me and him.  I brought Dean good coffee and the closest thing to a donut Starbucks has as a ‘Thank you.’  How exactly do you thank your brother for accepting your changed body as it is, and for being so gentle in taking your virginity?  “There’s something I need to tell you Sam,” he says quietly, looking at his own hands.  Now _I’m_ getting nervous, what the hell, is it something from last night?  Damn.  Fuck it.  I thought things were going to be a little weird but alright, maybe good, defiantly alright.

 

“I did something Sam.”  Sam looks at me so sadly under those bangs, still standing up, and digging for something in the little Starbucks bag.  Then I realize he thinks this is about last night.  “Not last night Sammy.” I smile, I need to smile when I think of him so vulnerable it me, and even if I never have that again I will always be his first.  But that might count for nothing after this, I hope it counts for everything…here goes, I have to say it:  “I called Bobby and Dad.”

 

The look anger in Sam’s face is about enough to kill me…the hurt enough to break my heart.  “Didn’t last night mean anything to you?”  He doesn’t give me an opportunity to answer, to explain things to him.  “It meant everything to me Dean.  Fucking everything that it was you, that you were so,” he looks at the ceiling as though he’ll receive some help from god, “you were so understanding, and gentle.  And the things you said Dean, you didn’t mean any of them?  I meant every word I said even if I should never have said them.”  He is standing over me, he is taller than me when I am walking next to him, above me he is menacing. “You never need touch me again, and I won’t ask you.  But you called Dad?”  Sammy is biting his lip, his eyes are pulled to slits, he is shaking his head, he is furious with me.

 

“Not now Sammy. I called them the night before…Thursday, I called them Thursday night.”  Now I try to explain myself:  “I was scared for you Sammy.  I was scared you’d go on,” it’s hard to find the right words now to explain what I thought then, now that I have some idea of what Sam was feeling, “I was scared that you hadn’t really thought about it, that you just hurt yourself for some reason.  I needed help, you needed help, so I called them.”  I must look as guilty as I feel.  I could have told him how angry I was with him for not coming to me for help years ago, how angry I really still am with him.

 

“Like that makes any difference,” he yells at me, but it does…I can see him soften as he turns his back on me, as he quietly sets about packing his things. “Don’t you think that it was mine to tell them?”  He says it so quietly.  Last night he was getting better, now I broke him again.  He sighs one of his bitchy sighs, he’s definitely not as angry as he was.  We both know Sam would never have told Dad.

 

“Stay, Sam.”  I am looking down at the floor, just sneaking glances at him.  “Please?” Still holding his duffel he sits down on the bed.  He spread his hands, he looks over his shoulder at me, and rolls his eyes. 

 

Dean sneaks a look at me out of the corner of his eye.   I can see him looking up at me and trying not to be seen.  I can’t help it, I smile at him.  “It’s not over Dean.”  Hell, it wouldn’t be over even if I hadn’t just had the most amazing experience with him.  I can’t describe to him what last night meant to me.  Last night I did tell him what he means to me. I feel like a fucking girl.  Not that there’s anything wrong with being girl.  I feel too much that I don’t understand again.

 

My phone rings, and, thank god, it’s Melissa.  She laughs at me for being a real man, and not going to the hospital, yeah, if she knew why I refused.  Then she tells me that we should still come over and she won’t make me ride anything, ‘can’t risk you falling off again.’  I think she _might_ have said that with some empathy.  Before she hangs up she asks me about Dean’s hangover, which I really hadn’t thought about because last night I had assumed he was sober:  _oh shit._

 

Sammy’s face is dark again by the time he gets off the phone.  “I need to take a walk.”  By which Sam means he is going to call Bobby, which is great and everything, if I never want Sam to talk to me again.

 

“Sammy?  I’m sorry. I didn’t think about it.”

 

“Of course you didn’t think Dean, you were drunk.”  And you were drunk again last night, and did I take advantage of you?  That’s just the right way to start on sex, taking using of my brother.

 

Sam walks out and closes the door quietly, which means that something upset him, something else upset him.

 

**Standing in the motel parking lot, since there’s no Impala to sit in:**

 

“Bobby?”  thank god he picked up, although I could have stood him not starting the conversation by calling me a ‘ _complete idjiot’_ , although it’s better than hanging up, or calling me half-a-dozen other things.  “I’m sorry.”

 

“You sorry you castrated yourself, or are you sorry you did it because you wanted to be with your brother?”

 

 _What?_   “What? No Bobby, I didn’t do it because I want to be with Dean.”  _Shit, did I just say that?_ Can Bobby get me to confess to anything?  I hate it when he’s pissed off and concerned all at the same time, Dean must have learned it from him.

 

“Sam, he thinks he did something terribly wrong to you when you were little, and he’s too afraid to tell you what he thinks, because he thinks he’ll make it worse.  And then he thinks you’ll leave, and he’s probably right.” 

 

Shit, if that’s what Dean really thinks he was really drunk, too drunk to do what we did last night. If he thinks he hurt me, if he thinks he will hurt me again, if that’s how he really feels he would never have agreed to touch me if he were sober.  “Bobby…”

 

“Sam, shut-up.  First they’re never growing back, so you better grow up and accept you’re a eunuch, and I hope you really wanted that.  Second, you may want to get away from Dean, because what you did hurt him really bad.”

 

“That’s not what he said to me.”  I never argue with Bobby, now he’s really going to get pissed off.

 

“What did he say to you Sam?  That he loves you, because he does.  And when you chose to get yourself castrated you didn’t just do it to yourself, you did something to him.  You could have had the decency to tell him first.”

 

“Bobby, no, I couldn’t tell him.”  I must sound stupid and desperate and bitchy:  “I knew he’d think that.  He always thinks it’s his fault.  He won’t let me even make my own mistakes.”

 

“Sam, don’t let being castrated have been a mistake.”

 

_God dammit Bobby, would you give me chance to speak?  And do you have to keep using that word?  And eunuch?  This is exactly why I didn’t want to tell anyone… they tell me what I am, then they want to know why, and then they tell me it’s all a mistake, and tell me it makes no sense, and they all tell me I should have talked to them first._

There is silence on the line so I realize that Bobby is waiting for me to speak.  Apparently I’ve taken to telling the truth:  “I couldn’t stand being like I was Bobby.  It was being cut by someone or doing it myself…or, you know.  Nothing to do with Dean, nothing to do with Dad or how I was raised, or hunting, or with anything, it was me.” _Could this thing just be about me?  You’d think someone would be happy that I don’t blame Dad.  Someone could actually be happy for me._

“First Sam, I don’t think you’re so alright with being castrated if you can’t even say the word.  And second Son, you are a eunuch, and that’s how everyone else is going to see you.”  He doesn’t say it unkindly, but there is grief in his voice.  “You go back to Dean, and you thank him for everything he’s done for you, and you ask him what he real feels about this, and when he’s told you that, and told you what he feels about you…”

 

I am so angry, I am so fucking angry.  This isn’t any of Bobby’s business, and Dean shouldn’t have made it that way, and anything that is between me and Dean is just that anyway, and what I feel about Dean and what he feels about me is just between us, and no one else needs to know.  And Bobby should know when to stop, and what’s his business and what’s not, no matter what Dean, _drunk_ Dean, saw fit to say to him.  Thank god what comes out of my mouth isn’t as vicious as my thoughts:  “ _I know what he feels about me.  He told me last night.”_   Then I hang up.  I know exactly what Dean told me last night and I don’t know if he was sober enough to say it.

 

**Alone in the motel room:**

 

My phone rings, and fuck:  “Dad?”   _I only left Dad a message,_ _Dad must have talked to Bobby._

 

“No, Sam’s not here.”  _At least he didn’t call Sam.  Dad probably wants to kill Sam._

“None of your goddamned business.”  Then Dad sees fit to remind me that I called him in the first place, which is true, and because it’s Dad I can’t use ‘ _I was drunk, I didn’t mean it_ ,’ as an excuse. 

 

“Sir, Dad, I really worried about him.”  _And I’d never have called you, Sir, in the first place if wasn’t so drunk I couldn’t remember who I was._

Dad says some harsh, hard, hateful things mostly about Sam, and some about me. 

 

“No Sir, you’re not upset, you’re pissed off.” 

 

“If you say those things about Sammy I’ll talk to you any way I damn well please.”

 

“Sir, it’s not your body.” _And he’s not my sister, he’s my brother._

 

“Dad, if Sammy hadn’t done this…” _How can Dad even think Sam would be better off if he killed himself?_

 

“No, Dad he had to do it, he needed to.”  _He had every right to make that choice for himself._

 

“You don’t need to understand it, ever, at all.”  _Just let Sam be._

“He did not do this to you.” _He did not do this to our family._

 

 “You think this is about you, John?  About something you did?”  _How about something you didn’t do_. 

 

“How you raised him?”  _I raised him._

 

“No he is not a girl.”  _Jesus, does everyone think that?_  

 

“Please Dad, won’t you listen to him at least?” _Not that I think that’s going to solve anything._

 

“No Sir, I’m not about to.”  _No one is allowed to say that about Sam._

 

“No, sir.”  _Even say that to him, and I will finish you._

“I’m pretty sure Sam knows what you think.” _Don’t you ever lay a hand on him._

 “No, I won’t let him know he’s not your son anymore.”  _You think you were ever really his Dad?_

“Dad, don’t say that.” _Sam **is** still part of this family._   _Don’t you say that about Mom, she would never have done that._

“Don’t. Say. That.  I _remember_ how she was with him.”  _Who is this asshole I’ve thought was our Dad?_

“Mommy loves Sammy.”  _Where did that come from?_ _  
_

“And don’t call us either.”  I mutter to a dead line. 

  

**Back in the motel room with Dean:**

Dean is washed out white - his freckles stark against his pale skin - sitting on the end of his bed, what started out as his bed, holding his phone in his hands.  “That’s it,” he says, “we’re never talking to Dad again.”

 

I cover my mouth with the back of a hand.  _He did this for me, Dean cut loose of Dad for me_.  He talked to Dad not about me, but for me, which he on some level shouldn’t have done and I guess I should be pissed off about that, but he just gave up the most important person in his life for me.  “Fuck Dean,” He looks devastated, “are you ok?”  He shakes his head. 

 

“The things he said Sammy…”  Dean didn’t know that Dad could say those things, didn’t know that Dad could be that way.

 

“I’m so sorry Dean.  If I hadn’t told you…”  I sit down next to him, and reach over to take his phone.  I don’t really know what I plan to do, it’s not as though we hug all the time or anything, and I just don’t know where to go with this.  He rests his head on my shoulder, we give ourselves this moment.

 

“It’s just the two of us now Sam.”  He pushes his head against me a little and I stroke his hair, and it all feels awkward and familiar.  Dean moves slightly away after a moment, eyes closed, I can see him wishing this hurt away.  I wait next to Dean and think about what Bobby said, about how I was hurting Dean, and I should go.

 

“I talked to Bobby.”

 

Dean mumbles at the floor:  “So, we still talking to him?”  I know he raises his eyebrows even though I don’t see it.  I know he is really asking: ‘ _Are you still talking to me?’_

 

I rest a hand on his back without looking at him.  I wait a moment, “Bobby said I should leave you, that I’m hurting you Dean.”  Dean shakes his head.

 

“Don’t you dare leave me Sammy.”  Maybe I had told Bobby too much about what Sam means to me, and Bobby probably wasn’t ready for that, who the hell would be?  If I’d said any of that to Dad he would probably have shot the both of us for ruining the Winchester family name.  I can’t, I won’t be without Sam, I don’t care what Sam does or who he is, I can’t be without him.  _Where did that come from?_   It’s one thing to be in love with him when I’m drunk and another thing when I’m sober.

 

We sit uneasily shoulder to shoulder, like we’ve been all our lives. It’s us together then, and I guess we’re probably still talking to Bobby, but not Dad. 

 

Dean’s phone rings again.  Does everyone need to talk to us this morning?  “Yeah, I think we’re coming over, let me check with Sam.”  I nod at Dean, we really need out of this room before it drives us mad.  And Dean actually laughs: “Yes, thanks for taking her to Melissa’s for me.”  He looks over to check with me if we are still going.  “That works, see you then.”  He gives me a noogie, does he have to do that? “Figured we might as well have some fun on our day off Sammy.”  I half-close my eyes and smile at him, I think I’m stuck always smiling at him.

 

We can’t talk about it today, but well, maybe one day again, when we’re both sober.

 

**At Melissa’s:**

 

I really hadn’t noticed how fancy this place was when we first came by.  I guess we’re used to not seeing how the other half lives.  Though Melissa isn’t part of the ‘other half’, she jokingly calls herself part of the ‘servant class’, maybe jokingly.  This place is nice.  She has the house to herself except six weeks in the summer, and runs that barn, with ‘the guys’.  ‘The guys’ come by and grab some food one or two at a time as we hang out on the lawn: a genuine, real deal, Kansas in the summer lawn.  And the burgers, that girl makes a mean burger.  Sam really should try one.

 

Dean had tried to take over the grill, which was just hilarious.  Melissa isn’t scared of nothing, and she certainly wasn’t scared of Dean in an apron, which James had somehow talking him into.  I thought she was going to actually injure him with the burger flipper if he didn’t get away fast enough.  All I need to do is sit back with my beer and watch the whole thing go down.  Dean smiles, I know he’s still hurting- bad – about Dad, but when he smiles at me I like to think he wasn’t drunk last night.   That last night he really meant at least some of what he said.  He seems to be working on being drunk again.  Melissa sends Dean to the kitchen to make a salad, and James saunters off with Dean in tow.  I wonder what our lives would be like if we could have real friends.

 

Melissa can be as bossy as Sammy…probably why they are becoming friends.  Sam doesn’t make friends easily, and hell, this is Kansas we don’t even want to be here, but even with the shit beat out of him by the bull, and the shit I brought down on us with Dad, and Bobby and everything, Sam smiles this afternoon.  Sam smiles at me.  I close my eyes a moment so I can remember that smile forever.

 

“Dean?”  James, yes, James, salad, kitchen.  “You did say he is your brother?”  I blush, how can I do a woman in the back seat of the impala and run into her in the grocery story with her mother and her kid the next day, and not blush?  But Sam, mention Sam, and I blush.  Yeah, well, it’s not like James actually knows anything.  I realize I’m staring at Sammy again.  James takes a long slow look at me as he passes me a tomato and tells me to get busy.

 

“Horse meat didn’t used to be eaten by people in the United States,” James tells me, “Except the French.”  I did not know that, I had never thought of that, and I’m not entirely sure I want to start thinking of it while I’m cooking.  “Dogs didn’t used to eat kibble either.”  James pauses, “and neither did the French for that matter.”  Where is this all coming from?  Or going?  “In the 1930’s dog food became a fashion, and cheap meat was needed.  The first horse slaughter houses were set up to kill ‘scrub tail’ horses from the range.”

 

“We fed the wild horses to dogs?”  That was something I really didn’t want to think about. 

 

“Some people used to, some people do.” James likes tangents.  “Some people eat them.”

 

“The French?”

 

James looks pleased at my ability to follow:  “And the Canadians.”

 

I’m seriously starting to wonder why I am learning about horse meat while we’re making a salad, although it’s a whole bunch better than over a cooking burger.  I walk over to the fridge (the well-stocked fridge) for another beer.  James gives me one of those looks, a look that Bobby would give me before I fucked up, a look that I never got from Dad.  Dad just waited till we fucked up and then he’d just yell at me, I’m starting to wonder what he did to Sam.  I realize I’m starting off into space again.  “You sure you want that Dean?”  I’m about to tell James that I hardly know him, and it’s none of his damn business how much I drink when he adds:  “Sam is watching.  I don’t know what’s really between the two of you, but you might want to be able to talk to him sober.”  I’m about to protest to James that I am sober when I realize he’s never seen me that way past two in the afternoon.  Yeah.  Great work Dean, Sammy did ‘that’ to himself and you didn’t even notice.  You can’t stay sober much past noon.  You aren’t talking to anyone in your family anymore.  Oh, yeah, and jerking-off your little brother when he’s scared and his heart is broken and he doesn’t know what to do.  Things are going great Winchester style.  It’s no damn wonder I drink.

 

James gets back to the horses:  “The United States banned slaughter,” he snorts, “as much as the federal government ever does anything, and now the meat companies want to bring it back.  There are going to be new slaughter houses opening, one in Nebraska...”  James looks over at the horses in the barn:  “Every time you sell one of them you may be selling them to the killer.”  I wonder what the hell this has to do with anything.  “Maybe not the next owner, maybe the one after, but you have to wonder…”  Now James is as far away as I am and we work in silence.

 

Sam is a laughing at something Melissa says.  No, Sam doesn’t think that Melissa hosing him down would make this into a pool party, but he’d be willing to try it on her.  She dashes past him – does this mean the burgers are officially ready? – and did I just see her pour water in his head?  She runs off laughing while Sam shakes his shaggy bangs, Sammy toes his sneakers off, and bare feet on the grass takes off running in those long easy strides.  I’ve probably nearly been killed once or twice because I stopped to watch my beautiful brother run. 

 

“Steering again Dean.”  Way to frighten a guy, I even reach for my gun.  James clearly knows it’s there.  He doesn’t ask me about it, but I can feel the question, an afternoon at a friend’s - could these people be friends? – sun, burgers, barefoot on Kansas lawns and I reach for a gun.  I can’t think of anything to say.  James drops the whole thing.  “Burgers are ready.  Let’s take this stuff and go eat.”

 

Sam looks so happy, and healthy, and strong in the sun.  His feet are bare, he is stripped down to nearly only his t-shirt, his plaid shirt unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up, barley covering hard, defined muscles, his jeans sit a little low to be decent showing the top of his boxers, a strip of smooth skin, a little trail of gold hair leading down where his t-shirt has ridden up.  Sam is breath taking.

 

Dean shows up still in his apron, a bowl of salad perched in one hand, a coke in the other.  He must have taken his boots of along the way, his toes are as pale and freckled as the rest of him.  And he must realize what I’m looking at, because he looks down at his toes, wiggles them in the grass, and pretend frowns at me.  And then he smiles.

 

James and Melissa are still here, and probably we should eat.  James tells us stories about horses he has known, about the mare with half an ear, and about the horse who tried to drink from his mother…at the age of 23…that didn’t go well, and the horse that chased the bear, and the mule who jumped right out of its pen.  And it all seems so right.  And then we come to the part about what’s been happening.  Melissa just says: ‘Save it for Monday, we can deal with it then.’  I get the impression they are just humoring me and Sam.

 

James and Melissa definitely know what’s going on.  I’m not sure they want to stop it though.  I don’t think they want to stop us, just keep us going on a certain path.  Melissa hands me her plate, when did I become her personal server?  Jess would laugh so hard if she could see me now.  But, hint taken, I clear up the table while Dean talks her and James into a game of Volleyball.  I can’t quite hear everything they are saying.  I know Dean won’t say anything, it’s just that I don’t really want them asking questions about me.  I look over at them and James scoots me along, tell me to hurry up, and it seems ok again.

 

James and Melissa ask me the:  ‘is he really ok?’ questions.  And if it’s just about the bull, hell yes, Sammy’s taken worse than that and bounced back.  But they hesitate and then leave it.  Just a couple of quick questions, but I’ve asked those before, where the answers are just the start of the real thing.  I’m starting to wonder if they know about Sammy, how in the hell would they?

 

It’s a good game.  We team Melissa with Sam, and me with James, because that’s the way the chips seem to be falling anyway.  James might be an old guy, ok, he’s not much older than Dad, but he’s quick and strong, and wins, James likes to win.  Melissa and Sammy, well, I can’t be jealous of a girl, but I am.  We play hard, I’m surprised how much Sam is willing to put out there after the hit he took yesterday.  We take a break for water and Melissa comes though on her promise of soaking Sam – and everyone else – with the hose.  And I think I see what I thought I felt last night.  I don’t want to stare, but I see Melissa letting herself look.  James just get on with things, grabs some cokes from the kitchen.  I see James give Melissa the quickest glance.

 

“Ice cream?”  Melissa asks.

 

God that sounds great.  “I really shouldn’t.” Maybe I shouldn’t have put it quite like I did in front of Dean.  A week ago he would have teased me about keeping my girlish figure and now he is looking skeptically at me.  But since I’m not eating any I get sent to fetch it, because apparently that’s how it’s done in Kansas…just ask Melissa.  And Dean follows me, because that’s how the Winchester boys (why are we still boys?) do things. 

 

“You ok?  From yesterday?  You took a pretty hard hit you know.  If you…”  Sam interrupts to tell me that he’s (bitch face) fine.  Considering he’s been telling me he was ‘fine’ since he was 12 and he really wanted to, you know, cut himself, fine isn’t something that I want to hear.  “What’s this sudden food thing then?”  Sam used to eat anything, so long as it was standing still, now he eats Caesar Salads, and organic apples, and scary as shit ‘smoothie juice blends’.  We could use those smoothies instead of salt lines.

 

“Dean, I just don’t want to,” Sam does look as though he wants out of this conversation, “gain weight.”  I snort at Sammy, I can’t help it. 

 

“So that’s what’s with the no fast-food and things?  And no burgers?  Melissa’s burgers are great.  You look like you don’t have manners.”  Because there is more to this, I can tell when Sam is keeping something from me.  I thought I could tell when Sam was keeping something from me.  And Sammy knows when he is trapped, so he is going to have to say something, or walk away, and I’m never letting him walk away again.  This isn’t something important enough to walk away from is it?

 

 “I, Jess and I did research on the net,”  Sam keeps his head down, he can tell he sounds stupid,  “anything with growth hormones, I shouldn’t eat anything with them in.”  Internet, seriously, he looked this stuff up on the internet? “Like burgers.” Sam helpfully adds.  The internet?

 

“What the hell Dean?”  Dean is in my face before I’m in the kitchen, he grabs me by the lapels and shoves me up against the wall.  Jesus fuck it Dean, a little angry there?  He’s in my face and he looks like he’s going to shake me, and I don’t move.  I don’t get what’s going on.  Of all the things to be pissed off about, lunch?  Fucking lunch in the sun outside on a lovely day in the fucking country, couldn’t he just let it be for now, for a little.

 

“What the fuck else did you and Jess look up on the internet?  Didn’t you talk to anyone about anything?  Wasn’t there some club at Stanford you could join?  Did you find the guy who did this on the…”  The look on Sam’s face.  I back off from touching him, just find myself backing away, I’m going to hurt him so bad for being this fucking stupid.  “You found someone to do this on the internet?  Didn’t you?”  He was at a real college, with real doctors and people who could help him. 

 

Now Sam is in my face, his hands aren’t on me, but they might as well be: “What the fuck would you know Dean. You don’t know what it was like for me.  Dad taught never to tell anyone anything.  And then this, this stupid fucking out of control body.  Sure there were people at Stanford that ‘mental health services’ said I should talk to,” and now he’s pacing and nearly walking away, “but I didn’t, I wasn’t like them.”  He rests both his hands against the kitchen wall and lets his head hang down:  “There is no word for people like me.  There is no place we can join.  There is nowhere safe were can go.  When I talked to the doctors they gave me a diagnosis and sent me to talk to people to get ‘better’, and I couldn’t tell them a damn thing.  And I didn’t want to get better, I wanted, I wanted what I got.  They wouldn’t give me this Dean.  I had to do it.  I had to figure it out for myself, and thank god for Jess, and for the internet.  Without the internet I would have done it in my dorm room in the bath tub, I couldn’t go on.  Jess helped me find him.  And she was going to be with me if this happened, if things got harder, if things didn’t work out right, we were going to figure it out together.”

 

I get it that Sam had to do it, I really do.  Most of it I don’t get, but the ‘had to’ part, I do.  “What I don’t get is what’s going on with you now?”  I pull him around and force him up against the wall, he’s not getting out of this without telling me the whole damn story.  I’m holding Sam against the wall and his muscle is hard, and his shirts are still wet, and set off by the clean lines of his pecs I see what I had thought I felt last night:   tiny beginnings of breasts.  I look straight at Sam again.  This is what he didn’t want Melissa and James to see, this is what he is worried the paramedics saw, how much did he have trust me last night to let me hold him so close.  I look down at his chest again:  “Sammy, do you want those?”

 

“I don’t know.  This wasn't ment to happen.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The time-line, especially the legal time line on horse slaughter is really wrong, but the story it self is accurate.
> 
> There are increasingly services available for people with complex body and/or gender identities. GLBTQI organizations may offer resources. The internet has all sorts of often conflicting information.
> 
> This chapter had a part two...but I was getting too many ideas into one place.
> 
> And thanks for the feed back! makes my stories worth writing :-)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam, Dean, James and Melissa work on solving the case. James tells Sam and Dean they need to get out of town before things go wrong for them.

 

In Kansas no one is innocent. 

 

The Winchesters were a topic from the moment they drove into town.  There was just something about Dean and Sam that attracted attention… their obvious lie about being journalists, their leading questions, and the willingness to take risks, their fight in the diner.  There was nothing normal about the Winchester brothers, least of all how they look at each other.  They are asking for trouble in Kansas, or they’re bringing trouble to Kansas - with young men like that it’s hard to tell.

 

Melissa called me that moment they walked off her place.  And she called it right: find Dean at the bar, find Sammy under a rock.  Melissa and I had talked it through: tell them what they need to, get the information we need, find out if they are hunters – wouldn’t be the first time hunters had come through town -  and decide how to proceed. I told Dean what he asked, waited to hear what he had to say.  Dean Winchester plays his cards close to the vest. 

 

Friday morning hadn’t resolved a single thing about the ghost ponies yet - other than the Winchesters have the same questions as Melissa and I, and no more answers.  And Dean doesn’t hold his liquor as well as he thinks.  We know that Sam doesn’t want to ‘do’ Melissa - the whole town knows that.  We do know Winchesters _are_ hunters, they are here to help, and they have more skills with ghosts, or whatever this might be, than us.  But we are no closer to our answer than we were before: _how in the love of Jesus do ghost horses kill someone, and how do we stop them from killing_? One man has already died, and we don’t want more dead...working with the Winchesters is in our best interests.  They may know more about hauntings, what they lack is the lore, and lore in the Western Tradition isn’t written...you need to shut-up and listen.  ‘ _Outsiders aren’t going to help us.’_ gets said in Kansas – so we invited the Winchester brothers on in.

 

Even after yesterday we don’t know much more – we all have the same basic information on the ghost - and we know Dean is reckless, and Sam can be a fool.  Sam, what’s the deal with Sam? Sam got himself good and proper hurt to protect Dean. And the first responders who did get their hands on Sam…had a theory…which they didn’t keep to themselves…and they weren’t kind about him.  Dean is full of bull-shit, and thinks he can save the world, after he saves Sam.  I’ve had to save them twice already, once from themselves and the stupid bull-riding, and once from the ‘ _cowboys’_.  After what I heard the rodeo junkies we like to call cowboys say about Sam last night the Winchesters would be better off leaving town - soon.

 

**At Melissa’s Barn:**

 

We are sitting in sun in yard at Melissa’s barn, and life seems easy this afternoon.  An afternoon of all four us pretending we know nothing is no harm done - between the all of us we pretend a lot of things.

 

**In the Kitchen:**

 

Those boys are taking their sweet time fetching ice-cream, so I go find them.  The Winchester boys, men, are up in each other’s faces, up against the kitchen wall…their fists hold them apart - wrap them together - whispering.  Some things you need to know.  Some things I wish I didn’t. 

 

They fly apart. 

 

“Sorry, uh, ice-cream.”  _Yeah, crap, yeah, ice-cream_ , _Dean and I had sort of forgotten about that_.  Dean and I must have just looked like, great, Dean and I just looked like what we aren’t:  lovers.  Can we be that? are we that? do I really want to ask that of him?  This is going to be awkward. 

 

**On the lawn at Melissa’s Barn:**

 

But it isn’t.  We find ourselves sitting, with ice-cream, on the lawn, James telling stories, legends and lore about Mustangs, and us listening.  Melissa tells stories about pony shows, and James about horse training, and me about Stanford.  And everyone is ragging at Dean about his not riding the bull – he’s so damn far away that I find myself speaking up for him.

 

Dean is quiet, and I know my not telling him before I did it has really hurt him.  And I know that how I did it, even if he understands why, how I did it frightens him, and Bobby was right, this isn’t just about me.  This should have been only about me, but it never has been, it wasn’t even about me and Jess, it is always me and Dean.

 

Sam fucking smiles and licks his spoon, slowly curling his tongue around it. _Fuck why am I watching him like that_?  _Last night was a one-time thing_.  Sam is chattering like I haven’t heard him to in too long…I don’t really want to listen, I just want to hear him. Sitting on the grass in the sun I want to lie down - I want to reach for Sam’s hand. 

 

Dean is smoking a cigarette – which he bummed from Mellissa - he is such a jerk…he knows it’s not good for him.  I should bitch at him for that, he’s close enough that I could smack him on the back of his head, he deserves that after the noogie this morning.  But summer sun and blue-white sky and the warm wind and Dean.  I wonder what he really thought when he looked at me in the kitchen.  Dean’s toes in the grass have freckles, I don’t think he listened to a word I’ve been saying, and I’m close enough to sleep to pretend this is our real life, me and Dean. 

 

**At the barn:**

 

James pokes me with a cowboy booted toe, tells me if I can’t ride bulls I might still make a good stable hand.  Apparently it’s time for feeding and they guys have been ‘ _given the afternoon’_.  Melissa grabs Sam to do the dishes or some girly thing.  I flinch at myself, better not be saying ‘girly thing’ anymore, not that I meant it like that, I’m mean I know he’s not a girl – I _really_ know he’s not a girl.  I just don’t know what I can say half the time, but I used to get it all wrong before anyhow - Sam always lets me try again.  Fuck it Sammy, after I called Bobby and Dad I hope you let me try again - I think you’re letting me try again.

 

James is looking straight ahead, walking in the same long strides I’ve become used to walking with Sam.  Hands in his pockets, cowboy hat on his head, eyes cast briefly up - everyone here looks up -  looking for rain he says.  “I told you about the hex-marks, and Sam saw them on the tape.”  And he starts pointing out how well the barn is marked up.  “There are two different systems,” he continues - Sam and I should have caught that – “the one to protect the barn from the ghost horses – the other to hex unwelcome guests, guests with blood on their hands.”  I nod, yeah, this all makes sense.  “Not a damn thing about dead journalists.”  James pauses and looks around and then walks, and talks on:  “I read a couple of old journals in the library in town, had another set of hexes in one.”  He is silent for a few strides:  “The ghost ponies aren’t really a problem – they’ve been around for years, the ranchers can deal - but the Hayes is, the journalist a problem.  Can’t find anything anyone would want him dead for...to the best of our knowledge there is no ‘blood on his hands’  and those hoof prints were pretty solid, I don’t know if I ghost put those on him.” 

 

Maybe James knows some old Indian legends the rest of us don’t.  “Don’t Indians believe horses have special powers, like, uh, spirit animals?”  I ask him, I _stupidly_ ask.

 

James looks at me.  Crap, what’s the phrase Sammy uses, ‘ _culturally insensitive’._  I try again:  “Native Americans?”

 

James looks at me: “I’m Kanza Dean. I was raised Catholic.”

 

“Uh,” Yeah, well, I wasn’t expecting that. “Uh, sorry, I just thought, I guess…” 

 

The look James gives me tells me that would be a good time to shut up. 

 

**In the kitchen:**

 

Sam drops everything and takes off running towards the barn.  Literally drops  - it’s a good thing he wasn’t holding flatware.

 

**At the barn again:**

 

They look up and wait, ears pricked for a sound that I don’t know is there.  When you’ve been with them long enough you know what they hear, what they watch – and what’s coming is nothing I understand.  They stallions are quiet in the thick air, as steady as peaceful as the moment before a tornado.  They are waiting, no fear in their eyes, and no fight.  I touch the talisman around my neck.  I don’t know if it will do anything.  The last person who saw this died; the only person who saw this died.  Though I don’t believe he died at the hands, hooves, of a ghost...those were plenty solid prints on him.  Dean is the only thing moving in the barn, and he does that fast.  He shoves me aside into an open stall and pulls the door shut behind us.  Dean reaches for his gun, but I cover his hand with mine and shake my head…a gunshot in the barn, in with the horses, would be disastrous, he might have silver or lead in there, but I’m not risking the horses panicking for any outcome.  The Horse can still hear us and smell us, but at least we are somewhat hidden.

 

The horse that I see though the slats of the stall isn’t large, he isn’t handsome, he has a broom-tail and a red-roan coat, and a Roman nose, and dirty white around his eyes, and short ears with their tips turned in - anything that he sires is going to be as ugly as sin. 

 

Sam moves faster than I anticipated from a man his size, for man who must be bruised black and blue under his layers of shirts.  There is a grace to him that I had enjoyed in watching him earlier.  He doesn’t look back for me.  Not that I have any intention of being left behind.  This is our fight, and the Winchesters are helpful addition, but they are not going to be taking over my barn.

 

“Dean!”  Sam blows through the South barn door ahead of me without an apparent thought of what’s inside, “Dean!”  And I back-off as he comes face to face with The Horse.

 

“Shit.”  That’s Melissa’s voice, she couldn’t have been far behind that her stupid Winchester.  It’s like we each picked one.

 

I grab Sam’s arm and try to pull him outside.  The bastard is heavy, and fucking hell – James is right - he is an idiot.  I’m quite sure he would get us all killed to save Dean.

 

“Sam, get the fuck out of here.”  Now Dean’s attracted the The Animal’s attention.

 

The Animal stands quiet, seeming uninterested in a confrontation, serenely unmoving.  Waiting.

 

“Sam, NO!”  That’s Melissa calling.  But Sam walks right back in, hoping to accomplish what...confront something he doesn’t understand?  But Sam doesn’t confront this thing, he sets about opening all the stall doors, I can see the practical point – once the doors are open The Horse should leave - but the stallions could also kill him…if The Horse doesn’t get to him first.  Dammit Sam Winchester – you’re as dumb as your brother – the last person who saw this horse _died_.  You may not matter to yourself, but to Dean, you are his everything.

 

 The roan horse is standing square, focusing his attention on Sam - who keeps walking looking unperturbed.  He should be running if he’s going to get all those doors open before something blows.

 

“Sam, hurry the fuck up!”  Why can’t Dean shut up?  Oh, right, he’s saving Sam…just lucky he didn’t go running out there.  The Horse looks briefly toward me and at Dean, ‘ _The Animal can open the door’_ , I think.  Dean tries to back us up into a corner; there isn’t any hope of reaching the rafters from here – and who knows what The Horse can do.  Sam hurry the fuck up – like your brother said - and get the horses out of here…before we are all killed. 

 

The Horse turns to keep watching Sam, and I’m holding Dean back, with an arm pulled behind his back, and my other hand over his mouth;  I’m bigger than him, but he’s young, and I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be able to control him.  Sam has some hope of getting those doors open if he doesn’t confront The Horse – and Dean _will_ get in The Animal’s face.  Sam is in enough danger in a barn full of stallions – without Dean challenging this thing.  “Wait.” I try to shush Dean as I hold him back, and murmur to him: “Wait, they might tolerate Sam, if he had it done long enough ago, they’ll recognize him as gelding.” 

 

Dean breaks out of my arms, spinning to face me, angry and intimidating:  “What the hell did you say about Sam?”

 

The stallions are running out the barn.  Melissa, where the hell is Melissa? How can she just be gone?  She’d never walk away from her horses…and is as likely to back-off as the boys.  There is a single shot from a shot-gun.  Melissa is back, thank god:  “Rock-salt.”  She is positively smirking:  “Men.”  she says with a laugh, “You can be so dumb.” But she is shaking.

 

Melissa looks at Sam with a tilt of her head, and now, after what James said, I wonder what she is thinking. 

 

Melissa is pissed.  Her horses are everywhere, and if someone ‘ _anyone of you men’_ had just thought to bring rock-salt this wouldn’t have been a problem.  Well, yeah.  Now at least we know - think - The Animal is a ghost, and we know to lay-down salt around the barn…which Sammy and I are sent to do.  But it isn’t quite adding up, why wasn’t it cold?  Melissa has banned us from catching horses – ‘ _Stallions can be dangerous, and stallions in a group…_ ’  she says, ‘ _there’s going to be fighting._ ’  It seems best to listen. 

 

Sam and I look things over, talk them through.  Hoof prints, I think some are bare feet on the dirt aisle, nothing else out of place.  No ectoplasm.  No sulphur. This Animal is part ghost, and what, wild mustang?  Can that even happen?  Or maybe a thought-form manifest by hexes?  We already know about the hex-marks.  I tell him about the journals James found in the library, maybe they are different than what Sam has read. 

 

But what I really need is to talk to Sam alone.  “They know.” 

 

Sam just nods, and looks down, then away, trying to make this not be happening:  “Some people are going to.”  He pauses, Sam looks at me - he is so much taller than me how does he seem to be he is looking up - gives a slight shrug, gets on with looking at things.  We both know there is more to be said.  I wish I could just gather him to me like I did two nights ago, last night… I find myself staring, I know my worry must be written on my face.

 

Dean looks at me, swallows before saying anything, there is an uneasy quiet between us, he actually seems to weigh his words not just spit them out, which means this is serious to him: “I don’t think they’re the only ones Sam, maybe we should blow this town?”  I don’t want to add this to Dean’s life, having to leave because of me.  Anyway, we should be able to hold our own.  Just because Bobby and Dad thought it was, I was, sickening doesn’t mean…though I didn’t want the medics finding out for a reason.  But its no-one’s damn businesses.  “Don’t think that Sam.”  Back to his usual self, telling me what to do, does he have to do that?  I just want to rest my head on his chest again, and have him make me feel safe, but I don’t want to fuck up Dean’s life.  I don’t want to do this alone.  Could he have meant what he said last night?  Do I trust him again after he called Bobby and Dad?  He gave up Dad for me.  Fuck it Dean.

 

Horses are packed back into stalls quick by Melissa and James.  I am put to work throwing hay as though nothing has happened.  “Work goes on.”  Melissa hands Sam grain and some _very_ precise instructions. She and James check each horse with quick and quiet hands.  She won’t let me anywhere near them.  She sends me to check water and Sam to the loft for more hay…and then we repeat it for the mares.  Sam looks quietly contented - I wish there was a world where I could give this to him. Maybe after this thing with the demon is done we could stop somewhere - find work as farm hands?  Keep Sam well wrapped up?  I could fix tractors, and fences and things.  Sam could learn some of the horse stuff.  “Sucks in the winter.”  Melissa must have noticed my thinking.

 

Sam walks with me, shoulder to shoulder, back to the house:  “There’s more hex marks in the loft.”  I just nod at him.

 

**Back at the house:**

 

“Wash up.”  Melissa tells us, “Those shoes don’t come in.”  These boots would _not_ be allowed in the Impala.  We all smell like horses, and anyway we should probably get going, but we need to talk ghost horses before we skip town.  “Don’t leave yet.”  It’s a request, but its firm. “We need to talk about The Horse and what happened.”  Melissa drops her smile:  “And we need to talk about Sam.”  Yeah, well, that’s none of their business, that’s between Sammy and me.

 

James is snapping his cell-phone shut as he joins us on the porch.  “Stay here tonight boys.  Dean, you and I should get your things from the motel and check you out, you leave town in the morning.  Leave your Impala here.”  Before I can ask James is answering:  “They are saying things in town about you Sam – you didn’t get away from the first responders before,” James looks concerned, maybe a little guilty, but if there was ever a man who had learned to not panic its him, “they had a good look at you.”  He raises a hand to silence me again, “It’s none of my business, and I’d like to keep it that way - but the bastards in town want to make it theirs.”

 

Dean’s lip curls:  “What the hell do they want with Sammy?”  And Sam and I are both moving to stop him from going anywhere before it’s too late and all hell breaks loose with Dean Winchester and a gun and his brother to protect. 

 

Dean has such a fucking short fuse, he is going to get us both killed, and, anyway, I don’t need him to save me.

 

“It’s ok…Dean!”  Sam has me by both shoulders, tightly.  “I’m safe here.”  I know what Sam wants to say is:  ‘ _this isn’t fucking happening’_.  “You ok, Dean?”  I can only blink at him.  “Dean!” Yeah, I’ll go into town and not shoot anyone if that’s what he needs, but I don’t know about finishing this job, James and Melissa were doing ok without us apparently.  Seriously, I think me and Sam should get the hell out of here.

 

**Back in the kitchen:**

 

“I’m sorry.” Melissa says, as she hands dishes of to me to be dried.  I shake my head, I knew all along this might be coming - Dean didn’t.  Any time I was hurt, in the hospital, arrested, in a fight, some time, someone would have found out.  And we still have to deal with the other hunters.  And if Dad’s got drunk – when Dad got drunk - who knows what kind of shit the other hunters have been told.  Thank god that Dad doesn’t really have friends.  “Small communities are closed minded Sam.”

 

Sam Winchester has no idea what he walked into.  When I look closely at Sam, Sammy – Dean calls him Sammy -  I don’t see a young man, I see ‘something’, I see something different, in-between…peach fuzz instead of stubble, those little breasts set against hard muscle, broad shoulders, lean body with the slightest softness to it…who knows what else, I certainly don’t…but different.  He tries to hide himself, but he really can’t, at 6’4” he really can’t disappear.  And he assumes things, believes he will fit it - and he did, and the dick-head cowboys let him rodeo with them, and then they found out…in their minds Sam betrayed them.   He is, they are, so screwed.

 

“Sam?”  We had been working in silence for a while.  The momentary look she gives me is hard to unravel - I’m not really used to women, except for Jess.  “I have a question…”

 

“I don’t want to be a girl!”  Oh, shit, well, Sam isn’t on edge, is he?  Guess too many people have been asking _that_ question.

 

I can’t help a little laugh, “That ship already sailed, long ago, Sam.”  And he laughs, out-right laughs, the best laugh I’ve seen from him, and I see something about him I hadn’t seen before, his head thrown back, his face creased with dimples - I see a man, someone, who could be happy.  “Well?”  I ask, “Do you want to?”  Sam looks down, as though he almost wants to answer, taking too long to dry a plate.  “Do you want to, are you a…”  I can make myself ask him:  “woman?”

 

 ‘ _Stop acting like a girl Sam_.’ ‘ _Are you a man or a girl Sam_?’ _‘Only girls cry Sam.’  ‘You shoot like a girl, Sam’ ‘Act like a man, Sam.’_   ‘ _Your brother is growing into a man._ ’  I told Jessica I wanted to be a man.  _Now is not the time to cry…Sam._   Eunuch?  There’s a mist of cold sweat down my back.  I shake my head.

 

“Don’t answer that Sam…I shouldn’t have asked. I know you must have some reason for what you did.”  She stops for a moment, “For what I think you did.  What people are saying you did…do you have any idea Sam, what kind of crap people make up about you?” After a significant pause she adds:  “Sam you and Dean, have no, and I mean no, idea of what you are doing.”

 

Why does everyone want to tell me that?  This isn’t the kind of thing you do because you’re confused or not past fucking totally sure. 

 

Sam softly say, talking to the dish in his hands:  “I know why I did it.”  He follows that with an abrupt:  “I can’t talk about this.”   He uses the back of his hand to wipe across his eyes, but he still looks calm – I’m quite sure he’s just holding it in -  he’s going to blow up later, probably at Dean.  He is quiet for a bit, and then talks again:  “Thanks.”  The look he gives me under his bangs that are falling in his eyes says more than his words - I can see why his brother is in love with him.

 

**In James’s Truck:**

 

“What the fuck is going on James?” 

 

Dean is ready for a, wanting to, fight.  These fucking bastards might deserve to be shot, but the Winchesters need to get out of here – these boys did bring trouble of their own.  “They really know nothing,”  I grimace – isn’t that always it, they don’t fucking know, and they don’t want to know, they just make up vicious crap, then kill it, kill us, kill Sam – “about Sam.”  I keep looking ahead, “I don’t really know either, I made an assumption, and I’m sorry for that.”  My hands tighten on the steering wheel:  “They said they’d make him their bitch.”  They said more than that, but I’m not going to tell him.  “These guys are armed, and self-righteous.  You need to get him out of here.”

 

Dean doesn’t say anything more for the trip into town.  At the motel he packs up their stuff and throws it in the back of the truck. I return room key at the front desk - I tell Patty, with the purple hair – why do women do that? – I sent the Winchester boys on their way.  I hope she feels bad for them and she and Selma spread that story around…even if the sisters think the Winchesters are fucking each other.  Think Dean is fucking Sam.

 

 “We need to talk about what’s been happening at the barn.”  We are both watching the road.   I hope this conversation means they are leaving town in the morning.  I nod.  “That Animal is part ghost and part something else.  Sam and I don’t know what it is.  Usually Sam would be doing research,” - Dean looks uncomfortable with me driving, he’s a man who likes to be in charge – “but with how things are now…”  Dean shakes his head, “I’m fucking going to kill every one of them.”  If Dean lived around here I don’t think that would be an idle threat.  “Who the fuck are they?”

 

 I shouldn’t tell Dean in case he follows through with his threat, but anyhow, I tell him.  “The guys you and Sam hung out with yesterday...”  I glance at Dean, the crease in his forehead says ‘ _What the fuck?_ ’  Twitch in his mouth say, ‘ _Those bastards are dead_.’  I look back at the road, “and guys from the bar, the ranchers who you visited, the first responders.”  Dean’s breathing is audible, he is ready to kill. “Take your brother, Dean, and get out of town in the morning…when those asses are at church.”

 

**Living Room at Melissa’s place:**

 

We are sitting, plates on our laps in the living room, waiting for dinner to be over so we can get to work.  And dinner was, at best, tense, Dean angry and attacking his food, and I was too nervous to eat, both Melissa and James workmanlike in eating left-overs.

 

We’re working tonight so Dean and I can leave in the morning -   I know Dean, and Dean doesn’t run, and this could turn ugly.  This started out as we get to take a little break, just a couple of days, and has ended up with this fuck-up of over-judgmental-right-wing freaks out to, to whatever.  We make an honest attempt to go over the case…get back to work…get our minds off the rest of it.  I had taken pictures of hex marks up in the hay lofts.  Hex marks that didn’t match anything we had seen so far.  Dean looked over my shoulder at the screen on my phone, “From the hay loft?”  I nod.  We run the whole story down, top to bottom.  The answer is in the Hex marks…at the rodeo - chalked onto stalls and trailers - anything, hexes in the barn - two old and one new set, the records from the local library, and the drawings from the on-line historical records.  And none of them match – not completely.  And the ghost ponies, that aren’t quite ghosts, which means they might have something to do with the range horses…range horses which we don’t quite have a full story on…and there doesn’t seem to be one.  And I’m tired, and we’re not going to get this done tonight anyway.  And I’m not sure I want to run…not finish what we started.

 

“Any strangers in town?”  Dean asks, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands clasped together, his and Sammy’s knees just touching – Sam reflecting his position – sitting side by side.  There is a flick of a smile between them as they find their rhythm again, this they know how to do. 

 

“University of Colorado girls.” 

 

Melissa looks at James raises both her eyebrows:  “The old goat remembers something after all.”  Her smile is virtually evil.

 

James shoots Melissa a dirty look - then he continues:  “Those two girls who came by over spring break,” Melissa and James clink their brandy-and-cokes together, and look smug.   They do look comfortable together – real friends, I wish Sammy could have some of those without it being a disaster.  “They visited any barn that would have them.  Supposedly a school project on the history of horse barns in the West, but more like”  James pauses, “flirting with…”  he gives Melissa a significant look, she exaggeratedly looks away, “cowboys?” 

 

“Yep.”  Melissa is quieter this evening than before.  “Let’s get this thing done.”  She is looking grim.  A man died in her barn, I can see how she would want this to be over.

 

Dean and Sam are sitting virtually on top of each other, which isn’t necessary, strictly speaking, reaching over each other to rearrange papers set out on the coffee table.   Our facts are laid out:  Images on Sam’s laptop, Sam’s phone, photo-copies James made at the library, sketches of marks from the barn and the rodeo.  The ghost pony, The Horse, that ran away from the rock-salt blast…is that the creature that chose to kill, was he forced to?  The ghost ponies have never attacked before.  Horses rarely attack without a reason. 

 

Dean speaks up after a lull in the conversation:  “What doesn’t make sense here, is why no cold, and why that peaceful feeling when The Horse came?”

 

Both Melissa and James look at Dean askance.  “It’s always quiet when they come.”

 

Dean opens his mouth to speak, but appears to think the better of it.  I agree with him, but I guess the ghosts are different here.

 

“The ghost horses come quietly.  They come for a reason though, and right now, they’re not breading the mares, as reasons go there is none.”  James turns some of the pictures around and begins to align them.  Dean and I must be losing our touch not to have seen that these hexes match up better when you turn the around, turn the images from the loft upside down.  They follow virtually over the hex marks James says were created to drive ‘ _men with blood on their hands_ ’ from the barn, and precisely overlays the Hexes for protection.  When one sets the three on top of each other, the lines are perfectly matched and inverted.  The other two sets of from the books flip the protection image around, nearly following – but when you set the two of those over each other we come up with a mark from an unexpected place – James’ amulet.

 

“Are they being called?”  asks Sam.  “That’s what the new hexes are for, calling?”  He looks hopefully up at James and Melissa, and I feel a sharp stab in my ribs that his question isn’t directed at me.  _Fuck it all Sammy, what are doing here? What have you done to me?_

 

“Or,” Melissa taps a rhythm with her fingers on the table, “they are coming to stop the slaughter.”

 

Sam pushes his bangs back from his eyes, and tweaks his mouth a little:  “What slaughter?” 

 

“Horse slaughter,” Melissa supplies, a little smile implying, maybe, perhaps, that I’m stupid.  Dean pouts, I guess only he is allowed to treat me that way…it’s slightly possessive and very comforting.  _When did I start thinking that type of behavior from Dean was ok?_

 

 “The horses you talked about at the bar that were allowed to run loose, Sam found those same stories in history books,  their descendants were sent to the slaughter?”  Dean asks of James, and is answered by a nod.

 

Sam looks so disgusted I almost laugh.  Not that it’s funny.  Not that just looking at Sam makes me happy, _I need to stop thinking those things_ , we have a case on our hands here. “And these horses have become the wild horse of the West – they myth of the Mustang.” Sam might be onto something here.  Sammy pauses for a moment and then asks:  “And those were the horses that broke in to breed the mares?” 

 

James looks happy about this one, just like Dean, men really are goats, “Everyone will tell you about the plug-ugly foal that wasn’t bred by their stallion, and they didn’t know until it was too late that mare was already in foal.  And the foals are as smart as they day is long, but as ugly as,” James looks at Melissa, “as ugly as the horse we saw.”

 

James nods at Sam.  “And their descendants were the original horses sent to slaughter.  And the next group of horses going is young quarter-horses…descendants of range horses, stock horses, Indian ponies, cousins of the horses already sent to slaughter”

 

“And those quarter horses are what you breed here?”  Sam asks even though he knows the answer, no matter how well I know him Sammy will never make sense. Cleverest man I know and he asks the dumbest questions.

 

“We have a winner, Sammy.”  Dean fluffs my hair.  Dammit Dean, in front of people? I’m not twelve, I’m seriously not twelve. But I don’t stop him immediately - because it’s Dean, and it’s comforting, and it makes the entire fucked up situation seem further away.

 

After a moment Sam slaps my hand away:  “College girls find old hexes in text books and write them up in barns, to stop the slaughter houses they call the ghost horses?  All we need to do is remove the hexes?  Should be simple enough, we can do it in the morning.”

 

“Like hell Sam.”  Dean has stood up, “Well be out of here, these guys can figure it out.” 

 

“Doesn’t solve the problem of the dead guy though.”  That’s a practical observation Sam, but I think these guys can figure it out – I’m sure I just said that.  Does he always have to be the clever bitch and not let well enough alone?  Sam makes a bitch face  - to make a point about how he’s _not_ done here - and goes back to looking at the drawings.  Half the town is out to do fuck knows what to Sam, and Sam looks unperturbed?  “What if something different killed him?  Something not-a-ghost?”  Sam puzzles over the hexes a minute or two, as they he can get something more out of them.  “This town,” Sam looks at them with such sincerity that they should be compelled to believe him “doesn’t seem to have any problem with violence.”  He leans back onto the couch and looks at me, and whispers “Fuck.”  Sam does get our problem then, good to know, Sam, now let’s be practical and get out of here. 

 

James shakes his head looking over the papers:  “He was one of them, one of the good-ol-boys, if anyone, human, had killed him the cops would have it by now.  We’re just lucky they don’t have one of us taken in for it – so far.” 

 

Well, great, now it really is our problem…as if we didn’t know that yet.  If the new hexes were made for calling we might have some killer college girls on our hands - kinda kinky in a sick sort of way.  And if they are after the folks in this town I might be happy to leave it.  But Sam, mr-lets-do-it-right, will want to get to the bottom of this.

 

“So some hot girls,”  Dean flashes a grin at Melissa, “find out about the proposed slaughter plants, find out about the hex marks in their classes, de-code the hexes and set up a new set of their own, to…” 

 

As soon as I pause to make sure I’ve followed this right Sam adds:  “What Dean?  To kill journalists?”  Bitch.

 

“To kill people related to the plant, some folks in town were buying into it - literally. The newspaper is going broke – print media is a bad business to be in and killing things is apparently a good one.  It’s causing problems around here, some of the ranchers like it, and some don’t.”  James knows the story on the ground better than the rest of us. 

 

Doesn’t that still mean a rancher could have killed the journalist?  And this is none of our business at all?  We really need to get out of here.  James answers my question before I can ask it aloud:  “Good-ol-boys, Dean.”

 

Sam looks over the marks.  He glances up at Melissa:  “The College girls called the horses which killed the journalist, only what they called isn’t your ghost ponies, which aren’t dangerous, they called something which that doesn’t follow the pattern?  Or they bewitched the ghost ponies?” Sam looks at James, as though he is looking for approval:  “They probably called the thought form by accident thinking that the ideas from text books were the real American West, and mixing up the ghost ponies with Mustangs, and…”  _I should not get jealous became Sam looks at other people, that is not something that I can afford to do on a case, ever._

 

“And the old hexes in the barn don’t stop this mixed up thing.”   Dean adds, running smoothly on from where I paused.  “Which means that your amulet won’t work James, which means we can use it to test our theory.”

 

Other than we don’t want to get James killed.  So Sammy volunteers.

 

“No!  Sam!”  Dean and Sam stare each other down over a chance to stupidly die to save the other. 

 

Sam stands up and pouts at Dean, it is an adorable pout - again, I do see Dean’s point.  “I’ll do it, Dean.  You don’t get to decide everything.”  Really neither Sam nor Dean know the first thing about horses, at all, they will just dig their hole deeper - our hole - deeper.  I don’t need another dead body in my barn, and this time it would be someone I actually like. 

 

Dean stands up as fast as Sam, and turns Sam to face him – a touch to Sam’s shoulder so gentle that I’m surprised Sam responds – but then growls at Sam:  “Not on my watch you won’t.  We’re bailing out of town tomorrow - case solved or not - to save your sweet ass, so not on my watch Sam.”

 

Dean’s ‘ _I’m so worried about you I’m going to kill you face’_ in front of people – isn’t he just pissed off at me?  and worried.  “Or we can just change the new hexes?”  It seems like a fair suggestion to me.

 

“And how long will that take before we know it worked?”  Dean can make a comment sounds like a command – just like he’s Dad.  _Dean gave up Dad for me._   Now is not the time to cry Sam, goddammit - just another thing that shouldn’t be happening - and I want to throw myself into Dean’s arms and ask  him to ‘ _fix it’_ just like he could when we were kids.  I just want to throw myself into Dean’s arms _after_ I know he’s not going to do anything stupid and get himself killed.

 

Sam shakes his head and gestures at me.  “I don’t know Dean.  How would I know that?”

 

“Since you suggested it Sam,” I hope they don’t get physical again. “I thought you might know the answer.”  Dean glances at me, never really letting himself get distracted from Sam – Sammy – “I’m going in tonight.  Someone in your barn at night might be enough to trigger the hexes…and call The Horse.”

 

“We don’t know that Dean.”  Sammy is trying to act reasonable, but his eyes are too wide, and he looks as though he might cry.  Dammit Sam, what the fuck did you do to yourself?  I don’t want either one of us out there, Sam could get hurt, and I just can’t take more hurt Sam, and I need to be here to protect him.  But one of us is going to have to do it. 

 

If that is a real horse in my barn the Winchesters may well get themselves killed, threatened horses do attack, any sensible horse when faced with a Winchester would weigh its options.  Worse, if that is a mixed-up-imaginary-mustang in my barn, the one from ‘the real American West’, it might attack first. 

 

“You can’t Dean.”  James gives me a warning look, but this has to be said, the Dean needs to understand that there really is no choice.  “You get in things faces – sorry, but that’s what you do.  And Sam kept things calm last time.  If anyone of us is doing it I think it should be him.”  I glace over at James, he doesn’t look too happy, but to keep things clear, and fuck-all-of-them – James also - this is my barn:  “I can’t, stallions can mistake women for mares, and heaven knows what could happen.  And, James…you aren’t exactly about pacifist non-confrontation either.  Sam…”  I trail off, Dean looks pissed, maybe this doesn’t need more explanation. I don’t really know this is the truth, I’m guessing.  Stupid fucking Sam, he could say this out-loud and get it over with.

 

“You need me to do it.”  One of Sam’s enormous hands grips me on a shoulder, the other is holding some notes on the hexes, clearly shaking.  “She’s right Dean, we need me to do it, because I’m castrated.”

 

There you go Sammy.  It wasn’t that bad, now it’s out in the open.  But it is. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I hope, hope, hope, I got rid of my spelling f*** ups. My GF decided not to beta for me...can't blame her. And italics, just another punctuation thing I just found and am enjoying - so if you will permit me the slight abuse of them? I'm back from South Africa anyhow, and hope to get another chapter out soonish. I had to move the plot along - hope I have all the pieces tied in. 
> 
> Next chapter is all about Sam and Dean. 
> 
> Thanks to D for listening to all my writing problems.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean, Sam, Melissa and James take on the ghost ponies - hoping they have the right answer. Sam and Dean have a talk that has been coming for a long time.
> 
> Doesn't contain graphic medical scenes, but does contain a discussion of human castration methods, of Sam's castration and the aftermath. Please read with care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my friend A, from Detroit, for stepping in and co-authoring with me. Improvements are hers, spelling remains mine.
> 
> Sorry about the long break between chapters - usual thing, RL intruding on my writing time.

Tonight’s plan was not something I was looking forward to – one should always trust your intuition with horses – and my intuition said nothing good about Sam in the aisle…said there was nothing safe for the Winchesters – said they should never have come to Kansas, or Cottonwood Falls, or this barn.   _These boys have brought their own trouble._  And they have added our troubles, at least some of them, to their own.  

**At the barn – 11:20 pm**

 

Melissa

Work has to be done, and tonight is the night for it.  James and I searched the mare and foaling barns for new hex marks – and found none.  We moved the stallions to the foaling barn – at least keep _them_ safe for the night, even though we seem intent on sacrificing Sam.  James’ horses seem settled in the east end of the girls’ barn - it’s only for the night.  The Winchester men have broken the salt lines around the stallion barn, laid down new at the others.  We don’t know if Sam in the barn will be enough to call, or to trigger the hex calling, The Animal, but for now it is our best bet.  The idiot boy is standing there without so much as a shot-gun, as part of being ‘non-threatening’.  There is a reason I don’t bet.  

**At the barn – 11:30 pm**

**Dean**

Leaving Sammy in the aisle is stupid.  I was stupid to ever fetch Sam from Stanford, stupid to insist he stay with me, stupid to let him be bait.  Stupid to not notice something was up with him.   Stupid to jerk him off last night.  Stupid to tell him how I feel.  Winchesters do stupid - we are doing stupid again.

 

**At the barn – 01:20 am**

**Melissa**

Dean and James and myself are waiting in the hay loft. We have searched every corner, found, hopefully, for Sam’s sake, all the new hex marks, destroyed most of them and are waiting near the remaining few - those girls did a thorough job…if it was them.  Dean is hovering anxiously above Sam – and has been for the couple of hours we have spent silent in the loft.  What makes Dean vulnerable is Sam – I don’t know why he agreed to jeopardize Sam tonight.   

 

I wonder how Dean and James and I became willing to martyr Sam to our cause.  

 

Sam looks lost in the aisle below.

**At the barn – 01:20 am**

**James**

Dean and Sam.  Melissa watches them not with the suspicion that she reserves for…doesn’t reserve…not here in Morris county.  She is letting down her guard particularly around Sam.  Not usual for her, and not safe.  She sees something in him.  Dean more than sees something in Sam.  I avoid thinking about that.  Dean backed off tonight on protecting Sam, letting Sam take his own decision…it still doesn’t follow that Dean will allow Sam this risk.  I would have thought he would rather cut off his own balls than risk his brother.  But they are putting more than their share on the line for us – and having decided to trust them, Melissa and I will follow through.

 

I feel sorry for Sam hung out as bait, but he has made his own choices, such as they are.   

 

**At the barn – 01:45 am**

**Dean**

I barely fucking fit up here, I can’t imagine how James does, or even Melissa.  We can’t do much to help Sam if, when, something weird, weirder than usual, happens.  First we have to wait for the amulet to ‘not work’.   _Then_ we destroy the hexes which _should_ work - _if_ they are bringing the horse.   Once we’ve done all that shit, we can blast the thing with rock salt, grab Sam out of there, blow this whole thing off, say we did our best, and skip town.  This is nuts. I agreed to it to let Sam prove a point – how stupid he is.  

 

If he wants to prove he’s a man, Sammy’s a little late.

 

**At the barn – 01:56 am**

**James**

The air is quiet, and waiting, the draft through the loft which had kept the temperature bearable has let up – Melissa and I know from experience that this is when this thing comes.   And Dean knows.  The only person who has never experienced this is Sam.

 

**At the barn – 01:56 am**

**Dean**

The lights in the other barns blink out.   We hadn’t taken that into account – this thing is part ghost – and we have no electricity...we hadn’t expected the other barns to be affected.  Beginners mistake - fuck.  I’m patting myself down with one hand for my fucking flashlight and holding onto the fucking sharpie - not my shotgun -  with my other, while Sam is defenseless – fuck again.

 

**At the barn – 01:57 am**

**Dean**

Sammy stands in the aisle like the big dork he is – hands in his pockets – eyes down.  That horse walks up to him, and Sammy just waits, then takes a cautious step forward.  Another thing we hadn’t thought through – we don’t know exactly what the amulet would do if it works…and there is no plan for what _Sam_ should do if it doesn’t - other than wait.  He stands facing at the horse, they both look worried.  Great job out there Sam, now we know the amulet doesn’t make you invisible.  

 

**At the barn – 01:58am**

**Dean**

“It’s not a Stallion.”  Yells Sam.  “Dean! This isn’t a stallion!”  He’s distracted from the horse, and her ears are pinned.  I hope the geek has read enough National Geographic know that pinned ears mean pissed off mare.

 

“Again?”  James and Melissa yell back in unison.

 

“Mare, Dean, it’s a mare.”  Yells Sam, clearly getting nervous – the pitch in his voice changes just slightly, and he calls to _me_ – he is frightened.  But it’s a lady horse?  Shouldn’t that be better?  Right?  Did some movie say that _stallions_ kill?

 

“Dammit, Dean!”  James curses:  “Dean, fix the damn fucking hexes!”  I realize he and Melissa have been working while I’ve been staring.  James snaps at me: “Mares lead the herd, there could be, are, more coming…”  A whole herd of fucked up coming - great.  “The stallion might still be coming.”  Great.

 

**At the barn – 01:58am**

**Sam**

I failed in the moment when we could have settled this without confrontation.  I think.  I don’t believe she meant me any harm.  We still don’t know if the amulet works.  But we do know this little reddish horse isn’t a stallion - not the traditional horse.  Given what we know, given the new set of hexes, given that this seems to be a new type of horse, I’m pretty sure the new hexes are what’s calling them.  Seems the college girls came up with this plan.

 

I broke the connection between the mare and me when I called out to Dean.  I broke my focus, broke her focus, and I probably distracted Dean - I hope he doesn’t do anything stupid to save me.   _Last night has completely distracted Dean and now is not the time to be dealing.  My last thought is going to be him with his hands on me._ Or my last thought might be that this mare is backing me into a corner and it doesn’t seem as if he being a she is going to help me any at all.  I set my shotgun aside earlier to appear non-threatening, if these horses go after folks with blood on their hands I wanted to minimize my chances of looking that way.  But the mare is, at least in part, a ghost and she will know these things -  she knows I have blood on my hands – and this might be my time to meet my destiny, and maybe see Jess again, and Mom. I know Dean is destroying those hexes.

 

I hear James’ explanation to Dean, and I realize that this could really be it, there are more coming, and possibly the stallion also, and I’m going to be leaving Dean alone – and I need to figure out a way out of this.    I make a dash for it, swing out beside her and…

 

I hear too many things happening.

 

I hear footfalls of bare hooves on dirt floor.  

 

I hear Melissa call:  Sam!  No!....not behind...”  

 

There is no other place to go.

 

I hear Dean call out: “…can you find anymore?”

 

And then I hear James call out:  “Not here.”  And then quietly add: “Dean, don’t do that…”

 

The arms pulling me out of the way of whatever is coming are Dean’s.  Always.

 

**At the barn 01:58am**

**Melissa:**

I watch as the roan mare’s hind feet reach out in slow motion - two small unshod striped hind hooves...little hearts.  I wonder if we should call them off at all – if we shouldn’t just trust the judgment of the mares, find a way to save the damn Winchesters and go our own ways.   If she wants to kill them she will - and all James and I will be able to do is watch.  But that first kick didn’t land, it was a warning.  

 

“Dean!”  Sam and Dean stumble together in the aisle, and Sam, momentarily getting the upper hand, pushes Dean out the way - as the whole damn herd comes flying in.  The last I see of Sam is a horse’s shoulder hitting him and sending him into the air -  the horse screams and pushes backing into the herd - getting as far from Sam as she can.  I’ve never seen that before.  That Amulet may of some use after all.

 

**At the barn 01:58am**

**Dean**

Sam hits the ground, and I can see that he is in pain - he rolls right up clutching his right wrist...steps backwards towards the stall walls, and now I can’t see him.  But right now the problem isn’t finding Sam, its finding the damn hexes.  He and I are down here, and our only way out is to seek-and-destroy those things.  James and Melissa were working their way through the loft again last I saw.  

 

A couple of the horses turn towards me, and the little mare’s head shoots eyes white, fucking scary bitch - but she is a beauty.  

 

Sam…am I really related to him, he does such jack-ass things…steps back into the aisle, and brings the horses’ attention to him.  I really don’t need saving, I’d have been fine here.  The thing is although they approach him, they don’t seem to want to touch him.  That amulet probably isn’t as powerful as it would be when protecting from the stallions, but it might work some after all they did base the new hexes on the old.  The mares push against each other, turning to him, following the eyes of their lead mare.  The little one herself she keeps backing at him.  It looks like she has a plan, and not a good one.  The amulet seems to be good only for some things.   _Sammy, just not now, not when we just found out about this thing between us, ok?_  Please?

 

**At the barn 01:58am**

**Sam**

Dean is briefly hidden and the mares don’t seem intent finding on him – but he as much as me has blood on his hands – how the hell did we get into this thing?   Why the fuck did I think any good could come of Kansas?  Hopefully the hay bales I shoved him behind will hide him for a moment – while we try to find the damn hex marks – they could be anywhere.  Those girls must have been thoroughly pissed off about something - probably slaughter, Melissa and James were pretty pissed off about the slaughter - those girls must have been plenty pissed off to call, imagine, create, such angry beautiful things.   James and Melissa could be inadvertently fueling these horses.

 

Dean manages to attract the attention of a couple of mares.  Typical Dean, always needs a woman’s attention.  The roan mare lifts her head, and she in a moment becomes something else, wild, powerful, spirit not contained by her small body, her spark drawing the focus of every horse to Dean, she is showing the beginning of her magic, of what she can become...and I need to stop her before she is that.  Dean has nothing to protect him, and I have the amulet which is better than Dean’s nothing.

 

I can’t lose him.

 

I stand up - step into the aisle.  The mare shifts her attention to me from Dean.

 

The little red mare is backing towards me again, and I remember Melissa's call of ‘not behind.’ I have nasty feeling I’m about to know what she meant.  The mare’s feet are a flicker in the dark.  A hoof catches my left shoulder - crap that hurts.  My left arm is going to be fucked. The mare makes a low dark sound I have never heard before - there is a glint in the mare’s eyes as she whirls around - she is so pissed...vengeful?  Crap.  But she can barely seem to reach me, I guess the amulet sort of works.

 

The amulet probably wards against the ghost part, not whatever else those girls called in.  The text books didn’t have all the hexes...the college girls didn’t have all the hexes...they missed something - they didn’t fully negate the protection hexes.   We can do this, get us out of here, get the problem solved, just need to find all those hex marks.

 

**At the barn, still 01:58am**

**James**

The red mare lined up to kick Sam, hard.   If the mare _could_ kick Sam like she tried he would be dead.  Damn if that amulet doesn’t work - some.  Melissa better be checking out the roof, I’m too heavy.  Dean better shift his ass up here again - where he left his fucking shot gun - or he is going to be screwed.

 

**At the barn 01:58am**

**Melissa**

From my spot searching in the rafters I can see James moving bales to find more hexes – those girls would have had to do heavy work to hide them there.  The Winchesters are on the move downstairs - Sam shoves past the roan mare towards the first stall, trips on the stall mat and nearly lands on his face – and there on the underside of the mat in glowing neon pink sharpie is a hex mark.  Fucking college bitches - though they did have a point - part of me agrees with them.

 

Dean shifts – the lead mare turns to him – and the mares wheel around to him.  Sam, as he stumbles to his feet again, throws Dean the amulet.  Dean catches the amulet...with one hand...without looking.

 

Sam doesn’t have so much as a marker to save himself.   I know what Dean would say, and there’s not much else really:  “Fuck.”

 

**At the barn still 01:58am**

**James**

Those mares are going to be all over Sam, he’s cornered in a stall, unless we fix this now he’s done.  I agree with Melissa - and Dean for once - completely: ‘Fuck’.

 

**At the barn still 01:58am**

**Dean**

Did I already say ‘idiot’ to describe Sam – because I really really meant it.  Now he’s going to die because the rest of us can’t do a search properly, because we had to get this all done tonight, because Sam wanted to do it right and finish up before we left.  Sam is going to die because he doesn’t have a fucking sharpie.  And because he threw the only thing that could save him to me.  Stupid.

 

The amulet feels hot in my hand, and I raise my hand to throw it back to Sammy.  

 

“Fucking wait Dean!  I got it!”  he calls out to me.

 

But he hasn’t got it - he disappears into the herd - I hear a “thump” and a grunt.   And now I can’t hear him, and shit, Sammy.

 

  **At the barn 01:58:17am**

**Sam**

The hit on my chest knocks the air out of my lungs - hurts enough to make my head light - the solid weight of my body hitting the wall brings me back - I stagger landing with my feet only half under me, and gasping -head clouding as I struggle to breathe.  I would rather not have had that foot print on my chest, but moving with it spares me fractured ribs - I think - and I need to get back down to floor level, to the fucking stall door, past the red mare…or I can just - from here - there is a line of sight and that’s all I need .   _Disrupt a single line on a hex mark and you change the whole thing_.  I see a flash hooves and I raise my arm as best I can as I duck down, and - god I hope that’s not a crack I hear -  I still can’t breathe.   I’m going to have to do something about this _before_ I figure out how to breathe again.

 

**At the barn 01:58:18am**

**Melissa**

I’m starting to appreciate Dean’s diction.  I whisper ‘Dammit Sam.’ under my breath as I watch from the rafters.  The mares and foals are milling in the barn - the red mare is cornering Sam properly, and she can kill him.  The mare is only part of the problem right now, the rest of Sam’s problem is the stallion that has arrived at the back of the herd.

 

**At the barn 01:58:18am**

**James**

That animals is flashy, he’s a stallion who many stockmen wouldn’t mind having add a something to their lines. 

**At the barn 01:58:19am**

**Dean**

There is a distinct sound, the brush of a blade.  Please don’t let Sam be taking them on, that blade might be iron, he’s careful, and he’s good, but not this good, with one knife and with all of them.  And my fucking shot gun is in the loft - I left it to grab Sam.  I can push past the mares to get to him, they won’t hurt me, much.  I still can’t see him well enough to throw him the amulet or the marker.

 

 

**At the barn 01:58:39am:**

**Dean**

The edge of Sam’s blade catches the light.  Sam is near perfect when he throws them - but where is he going with this.  There is a thump and a muttered curse, something has hit Sam again, and he is going down in the group of horses.  Then that soft sound of the blade taking its mark.

 

**At the barn 02:01am:**

**James**

Sam stands up, shakes his big dog of a body off and pulls his knife out of the stall mat.   That boy sure knows how to take a hit. If I see John Winchester again I’m going to ask him what the hell he did to his sons.

 

The mares don’t disperse, they return to their quiet.  They take their time to eat some hay, and I get a good long look at the little ones in amongst them - roan and spotted yearlings,, and an occasional blue, a clay-bank and mouse colored dun, a buckskin of one sort or another, a sorrel or two…and some of them look to be pretty well bred…I wonder how long this has been going on.  They seem unperturbed by the Winchesters to a point I think Sam might reach out and try to pet one.  He seems quite taken by the little red mare – if anyone asks me, that boy is quite nuts.  Not that I’d say that to Dean, he’d probably up off and shoot me, with that Colt .45 he’s so fond of carrying around.  God, fucking white men.

 

 Thinking of which, at least Dean hasn’t pulled his colt on Sam, yet.  But he pulled Sam in his arms, then threw him back up against the wall and shook him.  Looks like it hurt.  “You could have died Sammy.”  And he yells it, and he’s furious, and he looks to get out of the barn but the mares are still in the way, and Sam slumps to the floor.  Dean walks over to him and offers him a hand.

 

  **Back at the house.** **Downstairs landing:**

 

“Upstairs? or?”  Melissa pauses.

  


I pause a moment before I realize her question ‘ _Do you and Dean share a bed_?’  I look at him before I answer - everything has taken on added significance after the last week, and after last night.  Before last week the answer to Melissa’s question was ‘not since I was twelve’.  The question tonight between Dean and myself, however, is not ‘ _do we want to share a bed_?’ it is: _‘Are we entering a sexual relationship?  Any relationship?  a more-than-brothers-and-don’t -know-where-this-is-going-and-it-terrifies-me-but-I-need-you-like-I-need-to-breathe relationship_?’  I glance at him, and his little sideways smile just for a moment, which is good, because it means he has forgiven me for what happened, for what I did, at the barn, for fucking saving him.  Jesus. He was so angry.  Dean can be as angry as I can - together Dean and I must be frightening.

  
  


Melissa is looking between the two of us - and Sam is looking at me.  I could kill him for saving me - for risking himself -  at the barn, I need Sam, without Sam, without Sammy, I don’t.  Yeah, without Sam I can’t breathe, fuck.  Until this afternoon I had no idea how nearly I lost him to himself, I had no idea of the stupid things he could have done.  I smile at him because there is nothing I would rather do right now than share a bed with Sam.  Share every part of my fucked-up dangerous not-normal life with Sam... _how in the hell did we get here?_

  
  


Sam looks back at Melissa, and pauses for a moment, staring at her as though the question is impossible – _a little slow there a college boy, huh Sam?_  He is thinking hard about our decision – his mouth is a little open like he is about to speak, and he looks so fucking hot – and I shouldn’t feel that way.  And I feel jealous that Melissa gets to see that - Sammy is allowed to talk to other people - I know that.  Maybe, I shouldn’t have touched him last night - because I’ve never felt this for anyone but Sam:   _mine, mine, mine_.  Sam gestures between the two of us:  “If it's not too much trouble, me and Dean, if we could...” _Sammy, I hope she’s psychic because that was not clear._

  
  


“We’ll, uh,” Dean’s eyes are so clear and bright and green and scared, “together, we…”  Yeah, probably a bit clearer than me.

  


Melissa points us upstairs:  “Last door on the left.” She sends us on our way - while Sam is profusely thanking her for her hospitality - and she heads out to check her security.  Which I suspect is in place as much for Sam tonight as for the horses.  Horse thing should be solved at least.  Sam thing isn’t.

 

 

**Upstairs and alone:**

  


“Sam?”  Dean is standing with his back to me, hands and eyes checking his gun.  “We need to talk.”  He looks over his shoulder at me, gun still in his hand.

 

 

Sam flicks his eyes down at my gun then back up at my face.  He smiles, just a little smile, he still looks anxious - standing there with his hands in his hoodie pockets, looking at a gun that I only have in my hand to protect him.

 

“About last night.”  Dean adds.

  


Sam sits down on the foot of the bed, back turned away:  “God Dean, I’m sorry.”  He looks over his shoulder, and I realize I’m still holding my gun.  “I,” Sam pauses, and I don’t know if I should interrupt him or not. “I asked you for something last night, and you never say no to me.  And you were out of it earlier, and you were probably still not quite with it yet, and…” Sam touches both hands to his knees, and then turns them over so he is studying his palms – it’s way too late to read the future Sammy - “And not able to consent.   I…”  He sounds almost as anxious as after the fiasco at the asylum when he was trying to apologize for making a go at murdering me - literally.  Anyway this is Sam, and all sorts of girly shit - crap - emotional shit is possible, and I pretty sure I’m about to get some now, again.  “I really needed help Dean, and it wasn’t that you were just there.”  He glances back over his shoulder again, and then fixes his hazel eyes on me:  “I wanted you to be my first - I...thank you - I didn’t intend to use you.”

 

“Sam...”  Could Princess Samantha let me get a word in edgeways?

  


“And I’m sorry I didn’t ask more clearly for your consent, and I didn’t really explain what I needed.  And…”

 

“Sam!  Fucking listen to me.”  Dean is pissed, I can see it around his eyes, god, I think he’s even more pissed at me than he was at the asylum, though I do have a vengeful spirit to blame that on, and this is all on me.  I’m surprised he agreed, asked, to spend the night with me - he’s probably just scared that some bastard will try to kill me, that’s always been his job:  protect helpless Sammy.

  
  
  
“Sam.” I sit down and start to field strip my gun - again.

 

Dean field strips and cleans his guns when he’s nervous - his hands are steady, meticulous, educated, confident.

 

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about Sammy.”

 

“You…”  Sam tries to get all jacked up about it - again.

  
“I didn’t do anything I wouldn’t have done stone cold sober.”

 

“But you weren’t.”

  
  
“That’s not the point...the point is that it makes no difference in what I would have done with you.”

 

  
“The point is that the only time we’ve ever been,”  Sam does his quick glance away thing, I nearly expect him to get up to move further from me, and I see him burrowing his hands deeply into his hoodie - why does he still have that thing on, I know what he has under there - into his hoodie pockets.  “uh, intimate, you weren't sober enough to consent.”

  


“So what Sam?  Last night doesn’t count?   And since when the hell do you get to decide when I can _‘give consen_ t’? ”

 

Dean won’t listen to a damn word I say, he won’t fucking think through what happened.  He still has his hands on his gun, skilfully assembling it again, he stands back up, clicking the cartridge into place.  It should intimidate me, but it doesn’t.

 

“Dammit Dean, of course it counts.”  Classic Sam bitchface.  And Sam is up and he is squaring off with me.  Great...getting all aggressive now, I guess cutting his balls off did absolutely nothing to calm him down...I should have known that from the asylum.

  


Sam is going on again:  “You don’t think I could have coerced,” Sam pauses – all anxious now - “forced, you because you’re a man, and I’m not…” way too long pause from Sam while I try and get my head around what he thinks he, what? _Forced me_?  And then he’s not... _not what_? What the fuck Sam?

 

He opens his mouth to spew more bull-shit, and I hit him - hard.  I feel like a complete ass, he is still hurting - and I should be checking him out, for all we know those ribs are broken, and I don’t know how badly that arm is hurt - but really, really Sam, how could you think that?  “Forced?  You think that’s what you did Sam?  Because I did what I did because I love you.   And you don’t get to take last night away, because you decided some fucked up thing.  And I...fuck it Sam, I wanted to touch you, ok? ”

 

  _I took advantage of my little brother when he was lonely and desperate last night, and what the fuck does that make me?_

 

Usually you can’t stop Sam before he’s good and done, but the blow seems to have shut him up, maybe because I landed it on his jaw.    He needs to hear this, I said it a moment ago, I said it when he was a kid, we were kids, but not like this, he needs to understand the difference now:  “Sammy, I love you, like I shouldn’t.  And I probably made you this way because of it.”  And, yeah, it's sick.  I wish he hadn’t asked me, allowed me, last night because of this, because there is this thing between us after that... _I want him._ “But Sam, you don’t get to take last night away from me, what you gave me Sam, what you let me…”   _Oh, god Sam, please tell me you still love me, that you meant what you said - then I should go, before I hurt you anymore, but please tell me._

 

 

Sam looks like he can’t speak, he is still holding onto his jaw - I hit him hard, but that’s how we settle things between him and me.  

 

I jerk my head towards the bed to tell him to get ready and get in.  “You need your sleep princess - we need to get the fuck out of here in the real morning.”

“Now.”  Sam mutters, as though this were somehow his decision. “We should leave now.”   He doesn’t move though, he stands with a hand still cupped around his jaw, eyes still wide, from when I hit him.

  
  
“Tonight, Sam?”  How the fuck stupid is he, can’t he listen?  “James said those bastards are expecting us to leave while it’s dark...they’re waiting for us.  We couldn’t get out of Emporium Sammy, Council Grove, Bazaar, Lebanon, we’re not safe in any of them. If we go out now, before light, before they head to church - you will be murdered for you decision.  Do you get that Sam?”  Sam doesn’t answer.

  


Dean eventually sets his .45 Colt down on the nightstand, within easy reach, and sits down again - he’s probably exhausted - just running on adrenaline.

  
  
Sammy eventually speaks again, but it doesn’t take that angry look that I know means hurt off his face:  “For who I am Dean.”

  


“For who you are...for you decision...does it really matter Sam?  We just need to figure out the safest way to get out of here.”

  
  
Sam looms over me his big Sam paws on my shoulders, and he shoves me back until I’m laying down, his open hands holding me, he is kneeling over me, straddling me and he is strong.  Sam like this makes me think of the asylum - Sam’s face twisted in fear and hurt and anger - I know where my Colt is.

 

 “It fucking matters to me Dean...this isn’t some fucking decision, to be this _thing_ \- I had to do it, _this. is. who. I. am_.   I risked everything when I did this, how I did it was,”  Sam pauses, he doesn’t normally need to look for words, not since he was sixteen months and figured out how to speak, sort of anyway, “was the only way I could fucking pay for.” his voice is almost a whisper now, like he doesn’t really want to tell me this, but he has to, “I nearly died,” he shakes his shaggy head, “and it would nearly have been worth it.  Dean, I wanted to marry Jess, have a family, be normal.”  His mouth twitches at the last one and he chokes out a half laugh, it’s a joke - the giant fucking prank the universe played on the Winchesters.  “I might never have seen you again if it went wrong...and you want to know what that did to me Dean?  Do you?” his hands are tight on my shoulders, and he is so close to crying, but he doesn’t raise his voice,  “That’s the thing that nearly stopped me, not dying, not losing Jess, but not saying goodbye to you.  If this was something I could just have made _a choice, decision,_ about, I would never have done it.” 

 

For someone who needed me so much Sam did a great job of blowing me off, for three years.  

 

Sam’s pupils are blown wide, his face is distorted in a way I never wanted to see again:  “Want to know why I didn’t cut them off until now?  Why I didn’t cut myself when I was thirteen when I started having wet dreams?  I thought you might find me dead with your knife in my hand... I thought you might think it was because of something you had done, and I’d never be able to explain...I’d never see you again.    This, Dean, is why I ran to Flagstaff, I knew what I had to do by then, I was going to do it...if I did it Dean I could never have gone home.  Once I committed to this I could never go home again.  I wanted to explain to you why I could never see you again.    This isn’t something I _decided_ … I risked never seeing you again…to do this.   _This. is. who. I. am_.”

 

 Now Sam is whispering harshly in my ear, hair hanging over my face as well as his:  “Don’t you say you’d have helped me, you’d have told me not to do it.  You wouldn’t have helped me be like this.”  Sam spits that last sentence at me.  My head is still catching up with the rest.   _The problem is I didn’t know…not that I wouldn’t have helped him, I’d have cut them off my fucking self if that was how I saved Sam.  If Sam has to be this, I would have done it for him._

 

“I get it: _its. who. you. are_. Sam.”  

  

Then I say something stupid, again, because I mean it, and because I say that kind of thing before I think about it:  “I want you like this Sam.”  And it’s fucking sick, because my wanting him made him like this, he must have somehow known when he was just a kid, and he was seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, he must have seen how I looked at him.  I never wanted him to leave for Stanford, but I was happy when he went, because these feelings I’m not proud of - not now or not then.  

But I want him like this, just exactly like he is.  I want my hands all over him, and he’s my little baby brother, that perfect baby in my arms on that worst day of my life, and I shouldn’t.  He was as perfect in my arms last night as he was then...and I shouldn’t.  I did the one thing last night that I knew - always knew - I shouldn’t.  I did it because he asked me, and because I love him and because I want to touch him.  And I would have done it without a single shot, without any hesitation. Fuck it.  Damn.  And Sammy with those little boobies, titties, breasts, whatever I’m meant to call them... I hope they don’t freak him out, because I want to touch them...and no balls, that’s hot, and it really shouldn’t be.

Dean looks away from me, at the nightstand, the ever-present gun.  Even looking away I know Dean has those wrinkles around his eyes that will become permanent if he keeps worrying, or laughing, they wrinkle when he laughs also.  I’d rather they wrinkled from him laughing like he did this afternoon, yesterday afternoon.   I know that there is a crease in his forehead that tells me he will keep on worrying, not matter what I actually do.  

 

I want Dean.  I’m not used to wanting or to being allowed.  I’m not going to force him into anything.  I wonder if Dean knows that.  We don’t have to act on this, even if he wants me. It should be an easier choice for me to make now, to walk away from that.  Now that I can have it, it should be easy to decide not to.  A laugh chokes in my throat, because for the only time in my life, it’s not easy to walk away. Now that I don’t have balls I want in a way that I never felt before. _Jess, we never had the chance before you were gone._   I couldn’t give her the whole me, the thing that I can give to Dean - the thing I could have given Dean if he wanted it.

 

This is a quiet way to want someone, and I wanted that – not that fierce desire that hunted me down before, what I have left is a need to, oh god, for a want of a better word, a need to love.  Now I want Dean, in a way that I never wanted, couldn’t want,  Jess.  I should want to get out of here before I hurt Dean anymore.

  
  
Sam looks, looks something, puzzled, grumpy face puzzled, when he thinks things should make sense but they don’t, if he wasn’t so near breaking I would laugh at him.  He looks confused, like he did when he was a little kid and Dad told us something that Sammy didn’t understand and I had to explain it to him.  Sam lifts his hands off me, still sitting straddling me.  I don’t know where this is going, because physical contact with Sam has been getting interesting.  Not that I’m complaining, I just wish I was.  I want to tell him I understand that he had to, that he couldn't change it, can’t change who we are, and I get that.  

 

And now what he’s said, what he said earlier, I don’t understand, and I didn’t expect to be so confused: “You didn’t do this to me Dean.  You just didn’t.”  I’m still straddling him, and I know he has checked where his loaded Colt is, but I don’t know which of us he expects to use it – neither of us has forgotten about the Asylum.

 

“You didn’t do this to me, Dean. Dad didn’t do this to me, no-one did this to me, and this is how I am.”   _If there is a hell I’m going there - because I did do this to Dean._

 

Even fully dressed I can feel Dean underneath me, and I catch my breath because he is hard - he wants me.  I should never have asked him for anything last night, because it confirmed what I should always have known...I want him.  

 

Sammy hangs his head down, sits down still over me, his mop of hair hiding his face, I already saw his wide eyes, him chewing his bottom lip, I know Sam wants, and I want him.  And fuck, dammit, I shouldn’t, I am already so deep into this thing.  The desire in his eyes isn’t matched by his body - but his soft cock feels so good against my hard one.  I hold myself back from pushing against him.

  


I try to pull away from Dean,  I do have a choice, I don’t need to do this - but Dean reaches forwards and grabs my hips - his grip hurts - but it feels so good that he is hard and I’m soft and I want to rub myself against him.

  
  
 _Five minutes.  Just give us that.  Please._   _Sam._ Sam is stupid and confused and pissed off about something – he’s always pissed off - and fuck knows what he can do.  I saw him looking at my Colt, and if he is going to use it on anyone he is right, was right at the asylum, it should be me.  But without me Sam is going to get himself hurt, and half-an-hour ago he risked himself to save me.  I will never understand Sam.  “If you don’t want to Sam…?”

  
  
“Dean?”  I realize that Dean expects me to be hard, but I can’t be, not tonight, not so quickly, apparently my body doesn’t work like that– thank. fucking. god.  Not that last night wasn’t perfect – hard in Dean’s hand – Dean the first person to touch me when I’m like that - Dean bringing me to the first orgasm I’ve chosen to have...I never knew it could be so fucking wonderful.  I lift a hand to stroke his face and he jerks away for a moment.  Does he think I’m going for the gun?  “This is what I need sex to be, how I need…”   I have to say this aloud “I need love to be.  I want to be able to” - Dean doesn’t laugh at me, just holds me in place, hands now grasping at my bruised arms, which hurts, by the way Dean, but I don’t want to interrupt this  -“to be able to give you want you need,”  Dean, what did I do last night? Was it really ok with you?  “without being distracted by the way they made me feel.  I couldn’t give Jess what she needed, I was terrified, Dean, that Jess would touch them, even see them.  I can do this with you without being disgusted by myself.”    _If what I am now doesn’t horrify you Dean._

 

I need to get this out, finally, to have said this, something that I had almost been able to explain to Jess, that Dean will understand:  “I like being soft when I want you Dean.  This feels right, I don’t have to be afraid.  You touched me last night, when I asked you to touch me last night and I felt so right , even though I was hard Dean, it felt right, perfect.  I never knew I could feel that.  I’ve never been able to feel that way before.”  This is rambling, even for me, and I need to be clear:  “Dean, I, please let me make you feel as good as I felt last night.”

 

Sammy takes a deep breath before he finishes up:  “I just want this to be right for you.  If that’s what you want…”  Another breath:  “If never doing anything again is right for you, then we do that.”

 

I want so badly be that person that lets Sam feel right, I want to let Sam just take me.   _Please Sam?_  “Sam...no.”   _We can’t, I’m sorry my sweet Sam._

  

And Sam is off me.  Dammit.  Now he is standing, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides, mouth  firmly shut, and looking like he is going to cry, which would probably do him good, but I’m not going to say that to him, because then he will just close up.  I can’t find the right thing to say, ‘ _it’s not you it’s me’_ sounds fucking dumb, like some stupid chick movie.  That’s what happens when I think…I can’t find anything to say at all.  

 

 Dean must quit have thinking because he sits up and is quiet for too long, and then says the stupidest thing I have heard all night:  “ _I want to see you naked, everything off, all of it_.”  What the fuck? One minute he doesn’t want to touch me, and the next he wants me to strip?  And I can’t do that, I can’t be that exposed to him again, not when he is ready to walk away from this thing between us.

 

 Sam shakes his head.  And Dammit, again, Sam, not like that…I just want to see you, I taught you to pee in the fucking pot, I taught you to read, I know – knew – every scar on your body, every piece of you, I stitched you up, I set your fucking bones, I held your hand when we crossed the road, I changed your poopy diapers when we didn’t have our Mom – is it too much to ask of you that I see.

 

“I just want to see Sammy, see who you are, see what he did to you, what you did, to be…”  Dean trails off.

  

“What I did so I could be who I am?”  I finish the idea for him, and Dean nods.  And for other people his needing to see would probably make no sense, but it makes sense between him and me.  He has held me from the day Mom died in the fire, to when I lost - gave - myself to him last night.  He wants to see my body after I asked him to touch me? I’m not sure I can give that to him.

 

Sam strips off his hoodie, his shirt, his tee, drops them on the floor, facing me, stepping towards me, showing me, but not looking at me: “I’m not sure I can Dean.” 

 

Sam is beautiful, hard neat lines of muscle defining his shoulders, his abs and his chest, gently curved tiny breasts, pink nipples, the slight softness to his hips that I hadn’t noticed before, the line of his soft cock still tucked in his jeans that hang on his hip bones, that little trail of soft fur down his belly, those big, calloused, workmanlike hands - not the hands of a lawyer -  hanging by his sides, the embarrassed flush across his cheeks as he avoids my eyes.  Oh, fuck, I’m not meant to want him – and oh god, if this is how he is meant to be I think he did the right thing.  Jesus, I shouldn’t even think that.  I didn’t ask him to strip, for this, for me to look and want, and leer – I’m leering at Sam – I asked him to strip so I can see who he is now.  I need to see who this Sam is meant to be.  Problem is I want.

 

 “Did he hurt you Sammy?”

  

“He cut my balls off…what do you think?  Dean?”  

  

 I look directly at Sam - him standing, t-shirt off, right in front of me, between my knees, looking down at me -  I pull my own shirt off, strip down to my jeans, the amulet Sam gave me – then I actually take a look at his damage from the last two days. I should have done this before.  Crap, that shoulder is fucked – I’m not sure how he’s managing to pull things over his head, the hoof-print on his chest is pretty distinct, a little hoof-print, almost like a heart.  Could have stopped his heart, could have broken his ribs, could have punctured his lungs.   _Now_ I remember how he was gasping for breath, how I thought he would die, how my world was going to end. I reach up to touch them.  These are blows that he took protecting me.  I run a thumb around the edge of the hoof print, I should fix those, at least set an ice pack on them, but instead I leave my fingers tracing those bruises on his ribs, finding the scars I know, the cuts I stitched, the old knots in his bones, reminders under my hands.  

 

 “What did he do to you?”

 

 The rhythm of our breath falls together, and we hear Kansas summer night outside the window.  As soon as I think we won’t really be talking about it, Dean says quietly:  “Tell me.”  

 

 And Sam says something like this, because sometimes I don’t know if I can think as fast as he can talk, or if he can:  Cluster fuck…it’s a Winchester thing.  Because he found the cutter on the internet, because Stanford wouldn’t help him, because he couldn’t talk to anyone who understood, because he had to do it then, because if he didn’t find some he was going to try anyhow, and if he couldn't he was going to end it all, because real doctors in real hospitals don’t care about people like him - because there isn’t a word.  And because Jess and he didn’t have much money they did the best they could.  He tells me what his choices were, and fuck it makes me sick that he was hurting so much and didn’t, wouldn’t tell me:   it was the bath-tub, or banding his balls, apparently like sheep…and Jess couldn’t bring herself to do it.

 

I wait for Sam as he waits again.  We watch a stupid moth flying into the night-light:  “It was my only hope of getting it right.”

 

I put it all out there for Dean.  This is it, I’m not talking about it again, so he had better listen. I need to get it together before I open my mouth again and make a complete idiot, _idjit_ , out of myself.  We can see the stars though an open window - it feels like sitting the hood of the Impala, before I left for Stanford, just me and Dean when everything was ok just for a moment, life didn’t need an explanation.  This is _Dean_ that I’m talking to.  I’m allowed to tell Dean.  “Jess wouldn’t, couldn’t, help – that hurt – I didn’t want anyone else to know, not just that they were cut off, but that I ever had them.”  I realize how stupid that sounds when I say it aloud, but I’m telling Dean the truth for once.  “I thought about calling you Dean and asking you - how in the hell would I have done that?  I ran away from you so you would never know this.  Dean you could even have done it for me, put a band around my balls and waited until they were dead and cut them off,” I’m angry again, and I hate it when I’m angry at Dean, and he’s here for me now, I think.  “You would have said no, you would have thought I was hurting myself, have told Dad…”

 

 Telling Dad was a fuck up.  And Sam is right, I could have done this for him when he needed it, but I would have refused.  I realize I am holding Sam’s hands, and don’t pull away. Our finger twist together, resting on his hips.  

  

“Jess couldn’t be there when I was cut Dean - you would have?” I wonder if Dean will recognize that as the question it is.

  

Sam’s right, I would have, I would have been there for him... _if_ I had understood what this was doing to him.  

  

Sam is looking straight ahead – not looking at me as though he doesn’t even want to admit I’m here now, too late, but here – he hasn’t raised his voice above a whisper.  His hands hold grip tightly to mine, spreading my fingers over his hips, thumbs in the dip in front of the bone.  He waits for long enough that I notice the stars outside the open window, he and I are both looking at them. I circle my thumbs on his skin, and he goes on:  “Jess and I, I, could only come up with three grand cash, and…it should have been two surgeries…but the cutter agreed to do it in one.”   

 

 Sam leaving something big and scary out, I know Sam, and I’m going to push, because this is my only chance of knowing what actually happened.  Sam isn’t so pleased when I ask, so I hold him, slipping my hands around his wrists - he’s not going anywhere.  I’m getting more stupid it seems, holding Sam in place is never a good idea.  But Sam doesn’t pull away, he just turns his hands so we each grip palm to wrist, his grip as strong as mine.    _Sam like this - shirt off, hands holding me, so intent, is so fucking hot - it’s too late for me, I’m going to hell._

 

 “Tell me.”  

 

 For once Sam actually listens.  “I made a deal with him. He’d have cut me for free if I put it on tape, but I couldn’t, I didn’t want...”  I know Sam couldn’t - who the hell could?  How desperate would you have to be?  How long would it have been before Sam agreed?  What if he hadn’t come up with the cash?  What did Sam do to get three grand?

  

“Hustling pool.”  Sam adds, before I ask, and flashes a grin at me…dimples and all.   He never needs to know I live to see that smile.   _Does he know I live to see that smile?_

 

 Then Sam gets back to business:  “It’s standard to remove the testes first, and the scrotal sac later...”  Good way to avoid it Sam, none of us have ‘testes’ we all have nuts, or balls…....or not.  On he goes:  “There can be swelling from the castration process.”  Like I know what ‘the castration process’ is, I’ve never thought about any of this until Sam told me what he did.  And there are some things that Sammy can keep to himself.  It’s bad enough when Sammy is hurt by accident, that he had to do this…Jesus.  “We, I, chose to do the procedures simultaneously – I was, knowingly, at a high risk for swelling and urethral stricture – and the staples failing – and infection…”

 

 Dean cuts me off:  “You had your balls and your sac cut off at the same time to save money? Even though you knew it was stupid?”  Dean is angry, I feel his fingers making imprints on my wrists, and I let him, because this is the only, only time we are ever talking about this, and he needs to get whatever is bugging him out.  “You got an infection because you let some uneducated ass do this to you?  you swelled up, and you couldn’t go, and Jess wouldn’t touch you and she didn’t know what to do anyhow, and you?” Dean is furious, face white showing his freckles, top lip curled up:  “You what?  You didn’t call me?  Did you go to the hospital like you fucking should have?  Because you are allowed to save your own life you know. Sam?”

 

 Sam makes that little sound that is a sort of laugh.  “Dad taught me what to do for all of it.  One fake Credit Card, and one fake script, and I had everything I needed.”  I soften my grip on Sam’s wrists, rub my thumbs over them, slowly.  No matter what Dad said he would want Sam to save himself.  But to do it himself?  Jesus, Sammy, am I in love with the dumbest brother in the world?

  

“And you just fixed it?  Probably in the fucking bathtub?  Or was it sitting on the kitchen table?  Hoping to hell you didn’t die from toxemia?  And Jess wouldn’t have to find you there?  And I’d never know?  Never know that you were gone, and never know why.”   _Never been able to help you._

  

Dean loosens his grip, still running his thumbs over my pulses, the circles are careful, even tender, but his eyes are far away. A breeze pulls at lace curtains, carries the smell of hay, and turned soil, and Dean stays quiet, and I don’t know what to say to him.  Like I usually do, I hurt Dean.  This wasn’t just about me, this was about me and him…my hiding something from him, about not telling him, about cutting him out of my life.  This is about my not trusting him. 

 

 “I know you won’t believe me Sammy,” his voice is gruff, mumbling, “but I’d have done it for you, if I knew how much you needed it, I’d have done it.”  

  

_And it is fucking sick that I love him so much I’d have done it.  And fuck Dad._

 

 Sam smiles, a twist of his mouth, a breath of a laugh:  “I wish you had.”

 

  _I know Sam means it._

 

 

**On the upstairs landing:**

 

I had thought that bringing extra  - crochet cotton, how tasteful can you get - blankets to house guests was a benign act.  What I hear through the door makes me hesitate, I don’t want to get between those two, they are both substantial men with just as substantial emotional issues.  I don’t know why Sam and Dean save each other if they are just going to kill each other later.  I’ve heard some words exchanged.  I’ve heard what sounded like a blow landed, and the click of a cartridge slotting into place.   They are angry at each other.  Love is a stupid thing to get yourself involved with…in which to involve yourself.  Still those boys don’t get to kill each other in my house.

 

I am about to knock and enter when their voices soften.  I set the cotton covers down outside their door, I don’t want to be intruding.

 

 

**Together alone:**

 

“Is it Sam…”  Won’t Dean leave this damn thing alone?  I’ve talked. We’ve talked.  I’ve bared my soul to him, and I’ve given him my fucking heart, which apparently he’s decided he doesn’t want.

 

“I don’t want to talk about it.”  I knew Sam would get to this place…and this is it, tonight. I drop his hands, pull my wrists free, and he doesn’t protest, I close my eyes for a moment, try to find my stupid ‘quiet place’  -  I pick up my gun.  Open my eyes to find Sam staring at me again.  He knows I won’t shoot him.  I don’t know that he won’t shoot me. But he knows that while we might get rough with each other I would never really hurt him – physically – but I did call Bobby and Dad, of course Sam doesn’t trust me.

 

Dean turns the colt .45 over in his hands.  

 

“You didn’t expect the….” Dean waves a hand at me.  

 

I think he means the breasts and yeah, in-spite of everything I read, I didn’t expect them, less than four percent, so no, I didn’t expect them.

 

“Use your words Dean.”

 

“You can be such a bitch Sammy.”

 

“You can be such a jerk, Dean.”

 

Sam would you be serious?  

 

“You didn’t expect that.  And…”  

 

“What else didn’t I expect?”  Sam closes his hazel eyes, cutting me off.    “ I expected to lose muscle tone, most, over eighty percent of _eunuchs,”_ Sam barely gets that word out, “do, but I haven't, not much, but I work at it...I expected to gain fat, nearly everyone, I, just a bit, and I like it...hot flushes, but I thought they would go away…I expected ‘eunuch calm’ no sign of that, I was told to expect less sexual desire and lower performance, yeah,”  Sam snorts, “like I had anything to lose there...sterility,”  Sammy rolls his eyes, complete bitch face, “I’d guessed that...a hundred  other warnings and things to worry about, shock, septicemia, shrinking penis, incontinence, thrombosis,...but these...less than 4%, Did  I expect them, not so much.”

 

Sam half opens his eyes and looks at me, chewing his bottom lip, leans over, takes the colt from me, and sets it down on the night stand.  He reaches for my hands, opens them with his strong fingers, leads one palm over an old break in his ribs- I touched them earlier, I wrapped them years ago - leads the other over the bruises from yesterday, from today, that I haven't taken care of yet, that I should take care of.  He sets both of my hands on his belt-buckle with his, leads us  to stumble together through opening it.  “I didn’t expect to want to cry all the fucking time. I didn’t expect to get angry suddenly for no reason.”  That isn’t really a good excuse for the asylum Sam...if there is something more frightening than a pissed off spirit, it’s a menopausal Sammy.  “I thought I would know what, who, I wanted when I didn’t have them.”  He looks at me, he licks his lips, and looks down at the gun:  “You’d think I know something that simple.”  He doesn’t take his eyes off the gun:  “When I had them I knew what I hated about myself.  I used to know that, those, things, things were clear...that’s when I miss having them…and I didn’t expect to miss them.”  

 

Don’t let this have been a mistake Sammy.  This would be a big mistake, even for Sam.  

 

“And I didn’t expect Jess to be dead.” 

 

_I…damn it._

 

Sam, working with his giant hands holding mine in his pops the button on his jeans with a thumb.

 

“I miss them because they let other people think I was a man, and I let Jess think that, and then I didn’t know, now I don’t know, now I know I don’t know…”  Sam had better know what he meant because I’m not sure I followed that.  Except I know what he is trying to say, he’s trying to say _‘there’s not a word_.’   

  
Sam looks at me, face soft, eyes anxious, hands shaking over mine.  He’s this fucked up and he’s still so young.  Sam slides his zipper down with two fingers, and then lets us grip his jeans and boxers together.  He steps quietly, small step, towards me, right in my space, bumping my knees further apart,  close, where I like him, where I can pull him to me, where I know he is safe, and I think he is going to let me see.  ‘Close your eyes, Dean.’  and he says it  firmly, no questions, no choices, if I want this closing my eyes isn’t a request.  So I do, because -  dammit  - Sam so close to me, I don’t know what he’s offering me, but I want it.

 

Sam lets our hands guide his jeans and boxers down, his legs are a little spread, his jeans catch on his thighs.  He sets one of my hands on the sharp bone of a hip, letting my fingers just feel the softness that sets behind it now.  He must pull his cock  out of the way - when he guides my other hand back it is directly to the place where there is nothing.  Oh, god, my Sam.  It’s not quite a nothing, it’s a patchwork of scars, raised and puckered  and stretched out to smooth skin, I know enough about scars to know without seeing this is red and white and twisted, this is ugly, this must have been a crap load of swelling and one fuck of an infection.   It must have been one hell of a mess.    Sam didn’t say he didn’t expect that, he didn’t even say he didn’t want that.  My fingers touch on what is apparently a sensitive spot,  a smooth silky little dip, what must have been the hole he cut to push the catheter in behind the swelling.   Christ, the things that Dad taught us, things kids should never have known - but he saved Sam, Sam knew what to do.  Sam had to do that to himself.  Sam nearly died from this mess.  This body is what he needed, what he needs, it might have been a mess, but this is Sam.  

 

Sam, leads my hand in touching him, letting me know this about him, letting my fingers explore the ridges in his skin, letting my thumb run up the twisted line of the central scar, the cross hatch of what must have been Sam’s final set of stitches.  I realize his hand is shaking as much as mine, I wonder how often he has touched himself here. A big hand pulls my face close to his belly, to the firm lines of his abs, to where I can easily smell him, the sweetness I remember from him as a baby, and sweat, and fear. He pulls my head  closer, shifts towards me, until I rest my face against him, his tanned skin warm in the moist night, my nose touching his fine treasure trail - Sammy’s sasquatch paw cups my head and holds me firmly  in place against him.  I let a hand move from his hip around his back and pull him close.  I feel a shiver through, his body and I think he is eventually letting himself cry but the wet on his skin is my tears.  

 

It is three in the morning in Kansas.  

 

_Sweet Sam._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, well, I had been heading to this chapter for a while. Castration information on the internet are all over the place, including complications and effects. I tried to make heads or tails of what's just fantasy and hype, and what are reasonable expectations. 
> 
> And, just for the record, I like Jared Padalecki just as is, really, honest, I'm borrowing his body via Sam for this, and I wonder at times about the ethics of that (don't we all) but anyway, I certainly believe (and hope for him) that his life is simpler than this.
> 
> And comment, please, just say something? Let me know my readers haven't been subject to some mass catastrophe that spared me because I'm too evil, or spell too badly, or something.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At f***ing last, Sam and Dean get it together, except that they have to deal with some pissed off rednecks. Bobby is his usual amazing self :-) Sex is rough, angsty rough sex.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt as though I would never to get to this place—which is sort of its own beginning anyhow. Twenty thousand words and a year since my last chapter this thing is done. My stories always write themselves, or so I like to pretend, my wonderful muse, weather in person or in my thoughts (always) is really behind most of it, whether she knows it or not. I set this aside for a long time because I was so uncomfortable with Sam's body (had no idea that would happen); as I wrote I felt I was simply reflecting his uneasyness. 
> 
> I have notes that belong at the end of the story, the note for now is I have more warnings for this chapter than I had initially understood. I think. First, attempted sexual assault, then discussion of complete castration, where I started of course: castration, medical kink, and then some discussion of dom/sub that I didn't see coming, top dean; and discussion of piercing. Enjoy, and thank you for traveling with.
> 
> Also, about half of this chapter is porn, at the fuck last!

**Upstairs bedroom - 4:11 am**

**Dean**

Princess is sleeping peacefully for the first time since, since. I have an arm thrown over Sam, trying to hold onto him. Sam's flannel shirt is thrown somewhere on the floor, his jeans still hanging open, covering him some but showing the hard lines of muscle, and the soft lines I hadn’t expected. I want to touch, but this is Sam, and I need to ask. There is a tap and then the click of the door latch. I reach for my colt, cock it and wait.

**Upstairs bedroom - 4:11 am**

**Sam**

Laying wrapped up by Dean I can breathe. I want to ask him for more, I want to turn over and kiss him and see what happens, I want that hand resting over me to stray onto me, I want his hands to touch not only the parts of me that have been hurt, but everything. I can taste him from two days ago. My breath catches and I know he will notice. I settle myself. He will, does, notice everything. How he missed this about me—I thought it was intentional.

 

I let myself enjoy his hand on my hip, resting on new softness, sliding over the ridge of bone, pausing as he reaches lower to where I really want his touch. I want to tell him to do it, but more than that I want to lie here with him, and be quiet.

 

I’m still not getting hard, but that's good, but it makes me feel lonely. This is wanting, wound inside me, everything alive, my body flushed with heat, sweat that I could put off on the air but isn’t, giving myself to needing in the rhythm of Dean’s breathing. I want to turn over and take his mouth in mine, I want to kiss him looking into his eyes. I want to turn over and pull him close to me, a leg thrown over his hips—push forward into him. I want to watch his eyes as I let myself touch him—if he lets me touch him. I want to see if his eyes really change to a deeper green. I want to watch his face as his breathing changes, as I reach down for his—want to take him in my hand, I want to know what he feels like in my hand as he comes, watch his expression as he lets go, watch his mouth open, hear those noises that might make me hard, hear him say what he said before, if he meant what he said, if he means what he said.

 

The door clicks open and I stay perfectly still in Dean’s arms, ready to move, waiting to find out who our intruder is before I react - I lay quiet as he reaches over me and takes his colt from the nightstand.

**Upstairs bedroom 4:11 am**

**James**

I knock on the door, and wait a second, nothing, silence, those damn white boys would sleep through the apocalypse. I push the door open. Sam is laying sleeping in his brother's arms, his body shown like I hadn't expected it to be - Beautiful and sacrilegious.

Dean, his arm flung over his brother, has his hand on his colt, the safety off in a blink, and back on in a heartbeat—a long heart beat.  Guess they just wake up quietly.

 

**Upstairs bedroom 4:12 am**

**Dean**

“We have a problem.” James informs us.

It had better be a pretty big problem because it is four in the morning in fucking Kansas, and I've slept an hour which is worse than nothing. I raise my eyebrows, because words seem complicated. And I don't know what could be a much bigger problem than half of the state wanting Sam dead —even if James seems to think we have one.

 

**Upstairs bedroom 4:12am**

**James**

Dean raises his eyebrows, and yes we do have a problem. If you're me a much bigger problem, they not only want Sam dead, they want me dead, and possibly Melissa, and definitely Dean, and I don't know if Dean cares about that, but Sam does. “We need to leave now.” Dean just nods, Sam opens his eyes, awake this whole time, body aligned in front of Dean's—protecting Dean this whole time. What matters though is that these boys wake up quick, and I think 'now' will be five minutes, rather than twenty. I find myself shaking my head, still wondering what the hell number John pulled on these kids. “We gotta go.” In a single movement they are up from the bed, Sam acknowledging me with a nod, and covering himself with a flannel shirt hastily grabbed, blushing all the way to his hairline. I leave, he doesn't have to explain himself to me, this is not only none of my business, its something I didn't want to know.

This morning has too many things I don't want to know already; at least I still have friends good enough that they tell me when they're coming for me, but I have no illusions, they'll be there. Sam and Dean haven't suffered the delusion of friendship, they can go back to the life that is only them, should be really only them if this is how they are choosing to be together.

 

**Downstairs in the living room 4:14**

**Sam**

Before I can ask about Melissa, James fills me in: “Loading horses.” James' horses were here last night—this was always a possibility. They knew when someone came for me someone might come for us all. Melissa, ready to go, was planning on leaving all along. I wonder what James knows.  I don't know if I want to know.

 

**Downstairs in the living room 4:14**

**James**

These boys are nomads, they'll find their way to a nowhere again. It's Melissa I worry about. She's only been in Lawrence – where ever she comes from, and Lawrence – and here, she doesn't know what it is to run. It might work for her, or it might not. I watched her throw a full pack in her truck last night, and didn't say anything to her then, I'm not going to say it now. I know how to do this, life lived out of the truck, old leather bits bridles books—old man; taking with me horses that have never have had a paper – out of Kansas by trailer - and never have wanted a for a thing in their lives. Melissa hasn’t wanted for much either I think; this will be her first time on the road.

 

**Downstairs in the living room 4:14am**

**Dean**

Three minutes to ready to go and Sam heads out into the dawn cool, which isn't cool, to find Melissa, and I'm about to follow when a hand holds me back. “Dean.” James has a look on his face different than what I've seen before, and I can't place it. “You know your daddy came through here, when he and I were both younger, and you boys were just little, and Sam chatting on about your uncle Bobby until I wondered why the hell your Dad didn't just leave you there.” James hasn't lifted his hand, “I don't know what your dad did to you boys, but I'm sorry I didn't say something.” I open my mouth to speak but James cuts me off again, “And, in case you hadn't figured this out yet, don't come back.” I nod, and I would thank him, but I'm not exactly sure what for.

 

**Outside in the morning 4:15**

**Melissa**

I don't know what Sam wants from me. I don't actually know that Sam wants from me. I do know that this morning there is nothing to give. He holds back—doesn't interfere in what I'm doing, he came out here ostensibly to help, probably sent to help by James and is awkwardly out of his element, although Sam’s whole life seems to be awkwardly out of his element.

“You..?” he starts to ask, and then stops himself.

 

**Outside in the morning 4:16**

**Sam**

“We're going to be fine, James and I will be fine.” Melissa isn't looking at me, she's looking at the horses. “We’ll be fine.”

 

**Outside in the morning 4:16**

**Melissa**

Out of the corner of my eye I see Sam shake his head. “It's not as easy as it looks.” I hope it is, because they haven't made it look easy it all.

He's about to speak again, and I cut him off: “None of your business Sam.” And its not that I don't want to see Sam again, I might want to, someday, its that I'm tired of being whatever Dean assumed I was the first time we met, disappearing isn't going to solve that, but not talking about it, that might help. I don't know what story Sam made up about me, I might ask him one-day, he certainly won't ask me. That's maybe what I like about Sam, his secret is so all consuming that he leaves other people with theirs.

Sam speaks his mind anyhow: “If you run you can never come back.” And it's too late, because I ran already, but I'm not going to be telling him that; because neither of us can ever run away from our lives, and on days when the sun shines and the lawn is freshly mown and the smell of hay and horses is in the air, on those days we think we can make new ones. But Sam has tried, and I want to ask him, 'Can you? Can you really be a new thing?' But its not a new thing, its just a thing without a word.

 

**Outside in the morning 4:18**

**Sam**

Melissa handles the horses silently - when she brings the last one, red mare with a tuft of a mane that Melissa soothes briefly I see a look on Melissa’s face that isn’t meant for me. We throw bales into the truck bed Melissa lifting them with the easy rhythm of years if work, her mouth tightening a little as we finish every task. She checks the hitch one last time, and steps up, easy and strong, stretches long fingers and closes her hands on the leather wrapped over the steering wheel; I set to walk back, give her time, but she catches my eye and drops open the passenger door. The cab is littered with the detritus of her life, cigarettes, lighter, leather, marker pens, note books, Xenophon, Podhajsky, Ed. Abby, Goldman, Hooks, Black Stallion, Left Hand of Darkness, Dickens, Black Beauty, Dobie's The Mustangs, more books that must be in Chinese? Cantonese? I won't touch to be sure, even looking seems to be asking question that I don't have a right to. I wonder how she got here, in the middle of Kansas, in the middle of this mess, in the middle of the mess that we are, how she was thrown into this. That will never be mine to know; maybe that matters to me.

 

**Outside the house in an early Kansas summer morning**

**James**

The space between Sam and Dean, close or far, is always uncomfortable, a losing proposition. I find myself in it only by accident, and one of those accidents is now. I don't want to be a placeholder for their disaster. I look Dean over, he should still be a young man, but he may be too tired for that. “We don't need to kill anyone.” I tell him. I'm not sure that I have any chance of stopping him with his colt set on the dash for everyone to see. Fair warning I guess. If I didn't think the fuse was already lit on this thing I would tell Dean to be more careful—but that's what Sam should have been on Friday.

 

**In the truck-Kansas summer morning**

**Melissa**

Sam's angst sits down next to me; Sam's life isn't easy, but he seems to insist on making everything harder. This truck can haul eight head easily – but I don't know about Sam's guilt, and I wonder what that is about. Is it about Dean, is it about being what ever he is, its about something I won't ask him. I've asked him. Answering questions is a bigger deal than risking his life, and I don't want to ask him the questions that I can hardly answer.

 

**Sam**

Melissa pushes her hair back out of her face, and reaches into the glove compartment. Her colt is not that much different than Dean's, not any newer, clearly taken care of, and I wonder why she would choose to carry a gun. It's old enough that it wasn't always her who carried that gun, cared for enough that it was given to her.

 

**Melissa**

Sam smiles to himself as I pick up my gun and set it in reach. The he looks at me, all guilt. I shake my head at him, he's part of this fuck up, but not all of it, he doesn't get to claim the disaster that is about to be my life. Maybe I want to be gone, as alone as these two are when they are together. Maybe he and Dean have, what I have with the mare, a soul irrevocably given, and I have to keep going, because of her, I risked Sam, to protect her. I wonder if he is as gentle a lover as a friend, I wonder what kind of lover he is to Dean.

I could confess, but I don't, it won't change what could have happened.

 

**Outside the house on a Kansas summer morning**

**James**

Blood on their hands, that's what's about to happen to those gentlemen from Kansas, and its about to be mine. Its about time that we called it for what it is—hate. Dean seems unaware, absorbed in being ready to kill for his brother, maybe even wanting to kill for his brother. John Winchester had never killed enough, that's all I knew about him before he left town with his two boys in tow; sure he stopped that haunting, sure he thought it was the right thing to do, maybe it was, maybe it left the land more defenselessness than it was before.

 

**Dean**

James joins me in walking over to the Impala. James seems to have got himself a death wish: “We got you into this one.”

 

**James**

Dean looks unsure of himself for a moment then shakes his head, draws his eyebrows together, eyes still looking down: “We get ourselves into things.”

 

**Dean**

James loads a handgun, older than me, probably older than him, tucks it into his waist band, “Its our fight too Dean.”

 

**James**

Dean doesn't know he's one of us, or why I choose to defend him. This thing that he is with Sam, I don't know. I know Sam was made into this beyond what he can explain. Maybe the way he touches his brother, loves his brother is his way to explain. Dean, he doesn’t know how to do this, yet. Sam is just finding out.

 

**Melissa's Truck, Heading out**

**Sam**

Melissa looks over at me—tired, that's all I can read in her eyes, tired. I think she is about to wish us luck, and send us on our way, but instead she says: _Ride with me_. We could sit down and talk strategy, figure this all out: Dean is safer without me, he is always safer without me. Melissa is much safer without me, not pulled any further into what I have done, and I shake my head, she doesn’t get to take on the trouble I brought with me. I think she and James talked this through anyhow, he is no stranger to trouble either—it’s only Melissa that doesn’t know this thing, and I am jealous, and then I remember that by her second cup of coffee, and tenth cigarette, of this morning she is going to know.

 

**Impala**

**Dean**

James went over the plan with me, and splitting Sam and me out makes sense, but it’s not happening. If I weren't so worried over Sammy, and his, you know his...and what they will really do to him. It puts James at more risk anyhow, which is his choice...but I can take care of Sam better than Melissa can. James is right, these assholes won’t be expecting Sam in the truck, and once Sam is out of the way things are simpler but it puts Melissa at some real risk—which I’m pretty sure she doesn’t understand. We did nothing to deserve this kindness, but no one else gets to die even try to die for Sam. Or maybe I should just do what is best for Sammy only this time, and let him go with Melissa, he’ll be safer that way. I nod to James, we are going to do this. I don’t like this plan, but I don’t like our choices. My hands bunch into fists of their own accord, and I turn my back on James and bump a fist on the Impala’s roof for a moment, give my thoughts an anchor.

 

**Truck**

**Melissa**

Sam makes a face that I would describe as a bitch face if I didn’t know better, a little pinch to his mouth, a little shake to his head, a big ol’ wrinkle in his forehead. I don’t know better: Sam pulls a bitch face, and its not the first time I’ve seen him do it. I don’t think there’s much to say. I feel the power kick in as the hitch takes the weight. Her engine runs smooth for something this old, but there is a sound to it, a slight metal-on-metal whine, that tells me our next stop after not being murdered on the street should be to pick up more than oil. If hauling out of town is the way I decide to go with this I’ll put 'tune-up truck' on that on the list of things I need to do. Running away from home needs more organization than we’ve had time for. It would have been nice if there was a home to run away from. From which to run away.

 

**Sam**

I close my eyes briefly as we pull out. “Here’s the plan,” Melissa doesn’t look at me as she speaks. I’m open to any plan anyhow, since all Dean had was ‘ _we kill them before they kill us’_. “We’re going on ahead of James and Dean, hopefully anyone will think it’s me and James and let us on by. I don’t think they’d kill us on the street.” Melissa seems quite calm as she implies Dean or I might be killed on the street—and that she or James might be murdered behind a building. “Dean and James follow behind, Dean doesn’t have you with him, so hopefully...:” She trails off, and then looks over at me, pushing her dark hair behind her shoulders, “You had better be a good shot.”

She’s not joking.

Melissa likes me, that horse in the back her everything, if she has to choose I’m done. I can’t fault her.

Dean’s stick-together-and-shoot-’em-dead-Sammy plan might not be as well thought out, but its what I’m going with.

 

**Melissa**

“I’m going with Dean,” Sam says, and there is nothing negotiable about that sentence. Sam is about to do something very stupid because he thinks he knows better than me, and because he still thinks he can protect me. I’ve watched him and Dean together, and I know it will be useless to argue. Fuck him, I should tell him we’ve thought this through and he hasn’t because all he can think is Dean. I wonder if the girl he talked about, Jess, knew.

 

**Kansas Summer Morning**

**Sam**

Dean and James are in an intense discussion. Dean wouldn’t argue with James, he knows we are too vulnerable—these are at least momentarily friends in this whole mess that I’ve made out of our lives. But Dean looks as though he disagrees with James, and its probably the whole ‘split us up to save us’ plan, Dean isn’t going to be open to anyone saving him except me—and anyhow it put Melissa at risk, James can take care of himself. Dean turns his back on James and settles himself next to the Impala thumping the roof a couple of times in frustration, its his form of thinking, then he nods to James, and James heads over to the shotgun side of the Impala.

 

**Dean**

Melissa slows the rig and before it has quite stopped moving Sam is out. And, yep, they definitely had the discussion about us splitting up.

Sam is over to me, pack slung into the back of the Impala in a second, while James looks at us with raised eyebrows, and Melissa leans pretty and tired out of the truck window, lighting what’s probably not her first cigarette of the day. And the words are out of Sam's mouth before his feet hit the ground: “I’m not going anywhere without Dean.”

I’m about to argue, when Sammy gets up and into my face, and arguing seems like a bad idea.

 

**Melissa**

Then Sam is yelling at Dean about ‘ _how the fuck can you take decisions for both of us_ ’ and does Dean think that ‘ _what happened Friday night changes that_ ’ because apparently it doesn't. And I’ll be fucked if I don’t want to know what happened on Friday night, but I would rather deal with that after we are done with the prospect of being gunned down, at dawn, on a dusty back street in the west, picturesque exit in store for all.

 

**James**

There was no real point. No space between them. I step in beside Melissa, if they want to go ahead and get themselves killed then so be it. They are their father’s sons after all.

 

**Dean**

Sam doesn’t really seem to want to talk, he seems to want to be silent or yell at me, but right now we’re not dealing with that—we are dealing with do we have enough fire power in this car to blow ourselves out of this town, and dealing with we don’t kill people, but then people don’t usually hunt us either. Fucking great, I wonder if Sam is going to be fair game now—even in the wet heat of the morning I feel a chill, this isn’t just for today, we live this from now on.

Dammit, Sam.

 

**Sam**

The dirt road bounces the Impala’s suspension hard, Dean is driving fast on dirt, its a good way to tell he’s close to the edge. We can only turn one way out of the drive, and everything is ready, I've talked Dean out of an obvious arsenal, but he is still ready to shoot. Because of something I did Dean is going to get shot this morning. We really aren't going to be on time getting out of here.

 

**Dean**

Sam has his Beretta in the back of his jeans, ready to get us out of this. These guys violated him already, not physically maybe, much, but they took something about him that he meant to be a secret, and turned into something dirty. They took something about Sam that is meant to be mine only and used it to devalue him. We are getting the hell out of here. We go to Bobby's, we have no where else to go.

 

_**That Evening, Sioux Falls, S. Dakota** _

 

Bobby opens his porch door and steps back to allow us in – which is a good, great – start considering how things have been going. He looks me and Dean over, and we can’t look much worse than usual because Bobby doesn’t flinch, only pulls his cap half off, pinches the bill between thumb and forefinger, and rubs his forehead before saying anything.

“Dean,” a nod of acknowledgment, “Sam.” Bobby looks me up and down, studies me. I'm momentarily hurt by his lack of subtlety, not that he's ever been subtle, not that he's kept his feelings about my castration to himself. We stand in uncomfortable silence. Bobby turns to latch the screen door and stares at the Impala, he eventually looks over his shoulder catching Dean's eye and mutters, whispers: “What happened.” His voice is too soft for that to be a question about the car. It may not be a question about what happened today at all.

I can feel Sam avoiding this conversation, looking down and away but not moving, hiding in the fresh hoodie pulled on to cover the darkening bruising. Dean is looking out the the window at his fucked up car. “They wanted Sam.” he says looking past me and talking to Bobby. I don't say anything, Bobby was talking to Dean, and Dean to him, but what really happened is Dean could have died trying to save me, and what is happening is that Dean will never tell Bobby what we mean to each other.

Bobby’s jaw tightens, and, cap in hand, he rubs the back of his head, then nods at the kitchen table which means we should sit down. He looks Dean and then me, opens his mouth as though he is going to ask what really happened, then closes it again. There just isn't a great way to start this conversation. We all know what happened anyhow: I cut my balls off—someone found out.

Sam sets himself down, carefully, his limbs curling themselves into the space made for someone smaller, someone not quite like him – his life with me and Dad, John – and shifts uncomfortably. It sucks waiting for Bobby to ask us the questions that I don't want to answer and I don't think Sam does.

Bobby sets beers down on the table in front of Sam and me, no questions asked, and sits himself down opening the glass bottle with a neat flick of his wrist and without meeting our eyes.

I don't want to talk about this to Bobby; this is the beginning of troubles for me and Sam, and I don't want to involve anyone else. But Bobby will know if hunters are after Sam, fuck knows what Dad-John-has told them. I don’t know what to think anymore.

“So,” Bobby starts, looking at me, and then over at Sam. Sam is finally, totally done with wanting to talk about things, he just looks down and away, doesn’t even pull a decent bitch face. “Sam?”

Sam is looking down at the beer, holding it in one hand, not even making a polite pretense of drinking, picking the label off with the other. He eventually mutters and answer to Bobby: “I fucked up.” Sam really refines the dictionary meaning of petulant; I hope 'fucked up' had better be only about people finding out, and not about cutting himself. _I love Sam's body, want Sam's body, like it is_. I wonder if Bobby can read that on my face. I wonder what Bobby thinks Sam means when Sam says: “I fucked up.” again, loud, blunt, more angry this time.

Bobby sets his beer back on the table: “How are you boys?” Dean and I look over at each other. I'm not sure Bobby is asking about today, and not about what happened between Dean and me. Bobby can read us like a book, he would only be asking about what happened between Dean and me as a kindness—or not asking as a courtesy. I'm pretty sure he desperately wants to _not_ know what happened between Dean and myself.

As though the story begins and ends there, as though there wasn't any other interpretation of Bobby's question – and Dean does know there are – Dean says: “They came for Sam.” He is looking down at his beer, turning it in his fingers, “I dunno Bobby, didn’t know...” Dean leans forwards, both forearms resting on the table, looking down mostly, except to emphasize some phrases. “Didn’t know people wanted to, did, I didn't believe that people do...” Dean's mouth tightens at the corners, he draws on his beer and he looks up at the ceiling, sets his beer down on the table harder than is technically necessary. “I've been hunting the wrong thing.” Cold, and its final and I hope it's not true.

Dean didn't pull the trigger.

Here is the story as close as I can get it to the facts—just the facts, and a few omissions - hopefully Dean will follow my lead for once - to tell Bobby: We set out early, but not early enough.

What I don't tell Bobby is: We set out just ahead of James and Melissa, me riding shotgun with Dean, and James shaking his head at us, washing his hands of us - kindly - but none the less, leaving us to our own 'fools paradise'; and Melissa just taking her leave. James a little pissed at us, sent us out with what he had available as a blessing, telling Dean that he had no idea what we were walking into, and that with the choices Dean was making he had better figure it out, and threw in a wish for some good luck and some common sense for us, and told us to head out first if: 'we had to be together no matter what the cost'. Some of that cost was to Melissa, they would have made it out of town without what happened if we hadn't insisted – if I hadn't insisted – on driving with Dean. I never mention Melissa's name to Bobby, but we needed her to get us out of there alive.

I was afraid, and that's why I wanted to be with Dean, but I won’t tell that to Bobby, and Dean knows anyhow. It's different being hunted—but (apparent from our family) killing what we don't know is our nature. But what I tell half to my beer and half to Bobby, and a little to Dean, is if Dean had wanted to see the gunfight at OK Coral this is not how it would have gone down.

Dean tells Bobby - looking away - staying the night in Kansas had been a 'stupid damn plan' and that 'the job should have been left'. I knew that Dean was angry but for him to say something like ' _the job should have been left_ '; he was afraid.

Bobby lets our silence sit for a while.

Dean asks Bobby about another beer, instead of just helping himself like usual, and offers to fetch them all around, but Bobby refuses a beer, sends Dean for his own, and draws on his flask, and he and Dean drink. I wait  for Dean to pick our story up, but he doesn't, and eventually I keep going.

I go on telling the Bobby the short version, the version where Dean doesn’t grip my thigh tight enough to leave bruises, where Dean doesn’t look at me a moment too long – and he and I both know it – and delay his reaction time, the version where Dean doesn’t ask me if I told him the truth ‘that night’ and the version where I don’t step out of the Impala and intentionally into their hands – not the version where one of them has his arm around my throat and his hunting knife across my chest, where my Beretta is out of the waistband of my jeans and pushed between my lips before I can open my mouth to speak, not the version in which that's when I realize there is more than one guy holding me, and there are more where those came from, don't tell Bobby the version where all I can think of is how to get them away from Dean and where afterwards I can’t figure out when to answer him.

I stutter out to Bobby - I'm trying to hide how shaken I am by this whole thing and I don't know how long I can hold it together - that the only way forward was through, or through was forward, (or some awkward inane verbiage to cover the cold fear of what could have happened to Dean that is still sitting in the center of me), anyway, I tell Bobby that it was something that Dean would have normally been able to do; and if life was fair Dean would have done it – but Dean stopped because they were people, and because Dean is a good person – and I think because Dean didn't know what could happen, but I don't tell Bobby that last part. What I tell Bobby is: 'That’s when things really started going wrong, because we were surrounded, then Dean opened his window, to negotiate with them. What I don't say is: Dean opened his window, hands resting casually on the steering wheel, and says something innocent - I don’t get to call Dean that often - like: ‘Can’t we talk about this?’ I don't say this to Bobby but it was as though Dean was trying to talk us out of a hustle gone wrong. Dean will never say this either, but he never saw it coming; and that's when the baseball bat hit the hood of the Impala.

I do tell Bobby about the baseball bat on the hood of the Impala, about some guy knocking on my window, but I don't tell him how I was so scared they might hurt, kill, hurt, Dean. I don’t tell Bobby how I think: it might be better to have this done, to let them just take me, so Dean doesn't have to deal with this over and over, or how I wanted to make it of there in one piece because for the first time I can be what I need to be, and somewhere in me I thought, think, it might be ok to be this, me, with Dean. I tell Bobby that, everything else aside, this is my problem, I made it; I don't tell Bobby that, bottom line, I couldn't stand for them to do anything to Dean.

“They weren’t trying to ' _scare us straight._ ''”, (said with as much sarcasm as I've ever heard from Dean) “they were going to hurt Sam.” Dean is studying the table, studying the drying rings made by his beer bottle, both elbows resting on the table, one hand gripping an empty. We all know they were going to do more than hurt me – and unfortunately – Dean knows I would have been ok with it all to keep him safe. I know I'm an idiot for ever thinking he would let me get away with it.

Sam opens his mouth up, before he can make crap up to tell Bobby I go on: 'That’s when Sam gets out to talk to them because he is more of an idiot than I knew.' I don't add: Sam left me to go to college – and Sam is still an idiot, so he might as well have stayed with me, and we could have worked though this whole damn thing together, done it together, I could have done it for him, I'd have done a better fucking job, but that is what I'm thinking.

Sam tells Bobby he got out of the car to defuse things, and that he hadn't realized how far things had gone to hell. Sam doesn't tell Bobby that, at the worst possible time, because isn't it always the worst possible time for us, as he is stepping out the car, hands raised in defeat, I ask him: 'Did you mean what you said?' Sam doesn't mention to Bobby that he, stupid fucking – I can take care of myself, I don't need you Dean, Sammy (this isn't tying your own shoes Sam) – that he got out of the car with out answering my question, which was a stupid time to ask, but I needed, need, to know.

Bobby looks over at Sam, because its clear that Sam was trying to protect me—same version of trying to protect me were not telling me that he needed to be cut so I wouldn't try to help him is somehow meant to have been useful, the one where him taking an incredible risk is meant to protect me—somehow; the one where him making the hell up what the solution is and then just doing it without talking to anyone is a great plan.

I don't tell Bobby this part, but that is when I heard Sam saying something like: 'It’s ok Dean.' as he stepped out and into their arms, leaving the colt, letting them take his Beretta, letting them restrain him, arm around his neck, knife tracing lines over his shirt, gun at his jawline, two to one, he could have taken them if he chose. Then he told them-I could hardly make out what he was saying because his own Beretta is being nudged into his mouth, and he is trying to turn his head away so he can speak-trying to tell them to just let me go, and they can have him if they want, he promised to be good for them, to do what they want (I want to upchuck even now). I knew what he was offering them, know that after that he would have ended up dead. I knew that I didn’t have a good way to reach for my colt without setting them off and getting Sam shot. I don't tell Bobby about the Colt, because then I would need to explain what happened next, next-next. I tell Bobby the part where before I can move or say anything some guy has Sam, I don't say an arm around Sam's neck and a knife at Sam's ribs. I tell Bobby the guy is saying somethings to Sammy, horrible things, threatening things, things I hadn't thought of, I don't tell Bobby what they said, he doesn't need to know. I can't tell Bobby about the arm tight around Sam's throat until is Sam choking and gasping and forcing himself not to fight, making himself keep his arms hanging by his side, I can see the jerks where his body wants to fight, and Sam is still trying to talk, even as his mouth is being fucked open by his own Beretta, because when does Sam ever shut up except when Sam could have told me he wanted – needed - to be castrated, then he shut up.  Or perhaps when I need to know what he really feels about us, then he shuts up.

Sam tells the story so fucking calmly as though he doesn't – didn't – doesn't care what they were going to do to him; tells Bobby they came to rape him, he actually uses the word. Sam and I both knew they would have done more to him than ride him hard and put him up wet; they said as much.

Neither of us tells Bobby that Sam said something idiotic like: ' _He's just my brother, its not him you want, its me_.'

I don't tell Bobby that Sam didn't even look at me. I know that Sam meant it, he meant for them to just leave me be, and me to just leave - and it wasn't a distraction to allow me to get my hands on my colt— which he could have grabbed if he wanted—Sam is good when things go to hell, it wasn't a mistake that he didn't take the colt, he was giving himself up to protect me.

'Just,' suddenly hits me, “He's just my brother.” I'm angry at Sam all over again: Just. Only. Nothing more. That was his damn answer.

I don't have to look at Dean to know how angry he is, I can feel it, I know the twist in his lip, the cold eyes, that tight look taking over his whole face, how his freckles stand out as his face gets whiter —he is that angry; I risk a glance, he is turning his bottle in one hand, the other loosely cupped around, his fingers flexing but not making contact, and he is looking far away. I know from the change in Dean's breathing he isn't just angry right now, he's angry at me. I brought him into my mess by falling in love with him, and nearly got him killed.

I am as angry as when redneck-one had Sam in a choke hold, Sam's face turning white and red—Sam trying desperately not to struggle so they wouldn't try to take me—Sam choking out 'Just my brother,' to them, and 'Promise me,' to me or to them and I didn't know - don't know. What the hell he would expected me to promise. I'm as mind-fucking-blowingly, mouth cold, tongue stuck to the roof, furious as when the other was guy pulling Sam's head backwards, and pushing Sam's own Beretta into Sam's mouth as shivering deep inside relived as Sam eventually struggles just to get it out of his mouth. My blood is cold and my skin is as flash hot with rage as when that blade that I had thought was intend for Sam's throat was being tracing patters around his nipples, traveling down, pushing against his fly. I knew what they were going to do to Sam. I don't tell Bobby that redneck-one whispered in Sam's ear, loud so that I could hear it, said: 'Let's see what's in your box' They all laughed. I don't tell Bobby about redneck-two, one hand on Sam's shoulder, the other fucking Sam's mouth with the gun, telling Sam to 'suck it like it's his brother's cock', is easy pickings, Sam could have had that gun back in one move – but its like he remembered his plan and stopped fighting. Anger coils in my stomach again, metal taste in my mouth waiting for an out. I don't tell Bobby how that blade was stroking at Sam, and Sam who should have been fighting – his hands were free, his hands didn't come up to his throat like they should have, his hands curled and held by his sides by his own decision – I don't tell Bobby how Sam was going to let them, 'Help him figure out if he was really a boy or a girl'. and they would 'Sort it out for him.' Jesus. Fuck. I'm frozen, waiting for a moment to get in there where that guy won't jerk against the hair trigger on the Beretta. Then Sam said: 'Dean'. I'm ready to tell Bobby that Sam choked out my name, so damn angry and so desperate.

All I tell Bobby, because Sam and I are trying to patch a lie together as we go, and Sam and I are trying not to lie to Bobby, is that Sam was taken by surprise and tried to reason with them—Bobby will know that both of us weren't trying to be all reasonable about this; but this story is the best we can do in the moment, because we didn't talk about it, because we spent an afternoon, Impala under a tarp, hiding out in a shack outside Lebanon-Kansas not talking. Sam sitting on the floor back against what would have passed for a bed if there were a mattress on it, and me sitting at the kitchen table not knowing if I should try to touch him or if that would make everything worse. I don't tell Bobby that I spent the drive over here - after dark, lights off until we met the interstate - terrified that everyone, everyone, is going to see what Sam is, and fuck knows what Sam was thinking about, he was looking out the window and reaching for me and then pulling his hand back as though I wouldn't have noticed. I tell Bobby that they were on Sam immediately and didn't give him a chance to say anything because what did he say? _Just_? And I can't tell Bobby that.

Sam sighs, he would do that, just dismiss my telling this story of how he would obviously die to save me, even though he doesn't love me, which he isn't brave enough to tell me. Sam sighs and butts in before I can I tell Bobby that Sam said: 'Dean.' I think he meant to say 'Dean, Behind you.' but his words were cut off by a jerk of the arm around his throat, and Sam's hands reached up and clutched at that arm but never gripped, just scrabbled as he tried to not fight.

Damn. Fuck. Sam. _Sammy_.

I love Sam all wrong and what the fuck happens to us if Bobby ever finds out?

_So what if I stepped out and into their hands? It's my life, and Dean doesn't get to decide what is and isn't important to me. Dean can say anything he wants._

I don't tell Bobby that I thought they would take me and let Dean go, and I don't tell Bobby what Dean asked me, because really? One heck of a time to need to be sure Dean, I was only going to let them brutalize me to keep you safe, and that wasn't enough? I don't tell Bobby how I opened my mouth and gasped Dean's name and how the blade – scraping across my chest, touching me where only Dean should, touching me where Dean hadn't yet – intimate and violating, and how I don't to say “I love you, fucking run, go, get away from me while you can,” and how I can barely speak around then barrel tracing my lips, caressing me in a way I just don't, don't-I wanted to say that so badly- I end up trying to say to Dean “behind you”, because there is a guy with a gun behind Dean and if Dean hadn't been sitting around asking me questions he would already have been the hell out of there like I needed him to be.

I don't tell Bobby the guys holding me drop dead, beautiful marksman's shots I hear ringing out even as they take their targets down, even Dad couldn't have done it. I scramble for Dean's colt in the Impala, because anyone who hurts Dean is going to die.

Sam tells Bobby that he broke free and threw himself back into the Impala. He tells Bobby that some kid pulled a gun and missed a few shots, that should explain the damage to the Impala. Sam tells Bobby that he grabbed a shot gun, one with the rock salt, that hadn't been put up where it belonged because of some lame excuse that Sam comes up with-lying is all in the details Sammy-from the back seat, and the guys backed off. Sam is really great at making crap up.

It's all good that Sam told the story like that anyway because I was never going to tell Bobby that I was watching Sam (because I was stupid and confused and unprepared and in love with my beautiful brother) when my door was yanked open and there were hands on me, and that cold metal is definitely a barrel at the back of my head,and some guy demanding that I look at him and I think I had better to buy time, buy Sam a damn moment to actually use. I have no reason, at all, to mention to Bobby that there were shots, two shots, and I thought Sam was gone and I didn't give a damn about anything anymore. I never tell Bobby, since we hadn't mentioned the colt to start with, that I had to look over to see where it was, and it wasn't there, and another shot, the push of the barrel gone from behind my head – Sam holding onto the side of the Impala gripping the colt. I see Sam raise the colt, and I see him pull the trigger, and again, and again, and oh shit, and Sam and throws himself into the Impala. The Impala may have taken a couple of hits from somewhere.

I tell Bobby how I put my foot into it and don't tell him Sam is still holding the colt hissing “Go, go, fucking go, Dean.” and how stupid Sam sounded hissing like a fucking snake like I didn't know we should be getting out of a damn gunfight.

I don't tell Bobby what Dean didn't tell Bobby: that I look over my shoulder to see who is still out there planning on killing us, and who saved our asses, saved Dean's life, and Melissa is sitting on her horse, face obscured by a cowboy hat and dark-glasses, her long hair pulled back, and then she turns and just walks that horse away.

I tell Bobby that Dean floored it out of there. I don't tell Bobby that I just about had to make Dean drive because he was so damn busy starring at me.

Bobby and Dean and me are sitting at the kitchen table. Bobby probably thinking through the holes in our story. Dean and me thinking though the holes in our story. Bobby pushes his chair back, “Sam, you go ahead and take the guest room,” its at least an invitation to stay the night, if not in the conversation. Bobby adds, talking only to Dean: “Lets go go look at that Impala.”

I've been dismissed like a child. The screen door slams behind Bobby and Dean.

 

**Outside in the junkyard**

I haven't figured out what to say – I've given these boys my best advice – and they've ignored it. But sometimes you can't help loving who you love, and these boys are as good as my own. These boys are the only family I've ever known, and I don't want to lose them over this, more than that I don't want them to lose themselves.

I tug the door shut firmly, and thank Bobby silently for the lock, a moment alone has its uses - Dean knows I work out, he doesn't need to know the extent of it. I feel bad locking Dean out of our bedroom upstairs, as good as unchanged for as long as I can remember it, for as long as Bobby's place has been as close to home as we know, I look out the window, watch Dean and Bobby in the junk yard—whatever it is that Bobby has to say to Dean alone he gets on with it.

I can hear snatches of what Bobby has to say, looking down, running his hands over the damage to the Impala. “Dean,” Bobby has his eyes on the car: “You know you're looking for trouble.”

 

**From the guest room**

Dean says something, that I can half hear, probably what I'm thinking: we don't need to look, trouble finds the Winchesters anyhow. But it seems to find me in particular, and maybe after the trouble in Kansas I need to slow down and figure out if bringing Dean into this, if even telling him about me, if letting him, wanting him, to touch me, to touch him, is fair to him. I hid in that cabin with Dean this afternoon neither of us able to figure out how to make what happened in the morning go away, how to make what happened between us ok, how to get their hands off me, how to keep our eyes off each other, how to bridge this need between us and the fear that lives with us now. I sat this afternoon - bile creeping up in my already burning throat, my body trying to choke me, trying to shut me up - knowing that Dean wouldn't have been in trouble without me, and not being able to just get up and go—because I've done that once and I don't know if I have the strength to do it again. I spent the afternoon wishing none of this had ever happened, wishing that I could wish that none of this ever happened, wishing that this morning hadn't happened, chewing on the irony of me being with him putting Dean in danger, I spent the drive over just wanting to touch Dean and grab on and tell him to make, make, me his, so even if I go I will never need to belong to anyone else;  even if they make me, I'll still belong to Dean.

Anyway, Dean and Bobby move out of earshot, or mostly, and its nothing that I can't think about and do push-ups, three-hundred fucking push ups...starting at one. Three hundred ways to think about what happened. At least a hundred ways to convince myself about how I really shouldn't have brought Dean into this. Two hundred ways to tell myself about how this would be nice, a last night with friends, then a last day with family, and then maybe its good that I didn't answer Dean because maybe Bobby is right it was never fair of me to tangle Dean into this. No good way to tell myself that if I can't save him from me, I have to find the strength to leave him.

 

**Outside in the junkyard**

Dean is his usual taciturn self, or maybe he is keeping quiet so he doesn't confuse the details lie he and his brother told in there for the truth. They are getting as good at lying as John—and now they have something real to hide. Eventually Dean looks me in the eye—he is usually only this bold with Sam by his side: “Trouble finds us Bobby.” Dean is right, the Winchesters don't need to look for trouble, any of the Winchesters, but particularly Sam. “He loves you Dean,” I say, Dean sets his hands down on the hood of the Impala, leaning forward, looking straight at me, his face is set, and I know they don't want to hear, this but I'm the only one who can tell these boys and still love e'm: “in ways he shouldn't, he means you no harm Dean, but if you give him what he wants...”

Jumping rope-the floor doesn't shake so badly that I think I might bring whole house down-looking out the window without too much contortion I can see them, and I catch some words, “loves you”, “he shouldn't” “what he wants”. It's all true. I knew Bobby had it figured out – my own clumsiness with words – but his telling Dean feels like a betrayal of a confidence.

“Dean I know you'd do anything for him, but what he did, having himself castrated—Dean that's...” I trail off—what Sam did is his choice, but I can't believe its healthy. This is a harder conversation than I had thought it would be; I know how Dean loves Sam, but doesn't need to get drawn into it—into this choice Sam made and into the fantasy of being with Dean that Sam has made up. Sam swears that this need to be with Dean and his need to cut his balls off are unrelated; I can't be so sure—I'm surprised that Sam can. This is the hard part: “Leave him not just for your sake but his—let him find out what he is in his own way.”

 

**From the guest room**

Bobby and Dean are still staring each other down over the hood of the Impala. I forget how strong Bobby is, stocky, and a little too stout for his height, but every bit capable of taking Dean, or making a good go of it, and I can't imagine that they would go there, but their body language says they might.

Dean looks away, up, I can't see his face, but I know how conflicted is; Dean trusts Bobby.

The wait seems interminable. I'm at 85, or was that 185, or two-? I should move on to crunches.

“Bobby.” Dean's voice sounds thin, and loud, today took so much out of him. “ _I can't, won't, leave him. He's my brother and I'd do anything for him_.” I don't know why that word, brother, hits me so hard. We turned into so much, so much more, and he hid it. I know he has to deny it, but it hurts to be that “brother” not “lover”—not what he is to me: everything. I should move on to crunches, or I should just move on. I'm willing to say so to Bobby, to say Dean and I are lovers, even if Bobby doesn't want to know.

 

**In the Junkyard**

We work in silence, I'm out of things to say to these two, and I won't make up crap to tell to friends, family, like these boys have learned. If what 'they' did to the car is any indication of what the plan was for Sam I don't know how the boys got away but I'm grateful to whomever helped them out. Dean has lost some control of the pitch of his voice, has the faintest tremor, he doesn't usually-not since he was seventeen and decided he was man enough to give up on a decent education-hold onto fear; he is a shade or two more see through than he should be, a boy who has seen a ghost...or a vision of what will happen to his brother.

Dean slams a flat hand on the hood of his damaged Impala, turns on his heal and walks. I open my mouth to call after him, but I'm too old to run after those boys anymore.

“Dammit boy.” That's Bobby calling me as I turn and walk away, screw the Impala, screw Bobby, I'm going to get this straightened out with Sam.

 

 

**In the house**

Sam, reflection caught in the mirror, damn door swung open again (is Bobby ever going to fix that?) is sweating, jumping around on one foot trying to pull on a pair of jeans, hair sweat-damp clinging to his face, clean t-shirt held in a hand trying to tug jeans on at the same time, body showed for what it is, and whoever help me, but he is beautiful, titties which I don't know how I hadn't noticed because the might be small but they are prefect and they must have been nearly pushed against me, when we, he must have kept himself a little back from me, held a little back, while we were, were...while we were, we weren't fucking, Sam will never be anyone's fuck, Sam is perfect, perfecter, and he has a set look on face. I had thought-and I don't know why I think I can predict him anymore-I had thought he would go shower, try to rub a new layer of bruises out with soap and heat, but there he is getting dressed like he is going somewhere, pulling at his good jeans leaving them showing the curve of his ass, showing the line of his hips as he tugs on them again, still only half balanced, showing his six pack, eight pack, what ever pack, with just a little softness and sheen of wet over his built body. Sam works out. Sam worked out. There is a line of sweat running down the back of his neck - down a path of muscle - that he wipes off with what a moment ago was his clean t-shirt, there is a flush extending from his face down his chest, down to where his jeans are not quite pulled up. Who in their right fucking mind would work out after having be trampled by a bull, beaten up by a pony and nearly, nearly...hurt Sam.  

Sam stops and looks in the mirror, at himself—I should probably step away, close the door, knock on the door, something—and shimmies his jeans most way up and leaves them unzipped, runs his hands over his hips, letting them rest a little on the flesh there...he runs a big hand - enormous hand - over his other arm and curls his arm to show the bi- and triceps enhanced by the dampness of his skin, tightens his hand in a strong grip on those muscles and flexes them more, flexes the muscles in his back. A shadow crosses his face as he closes his hand on the hard muscle. He slides a hand down into the front of his jeans to touch himself, tugging his cock out, looking at it quizzically, giving himself a few tentative strokes, then he almost grimaces and bring his other up to trace the line under his breasts, he flicks his nipples and then slides his other hand up from his crotch tracing the center line of his body, tracing the line that blade had ghosted over his body, touching himself where the knife had touched him, and I feel the bitter warm taste rise in my throat, Sam had never been touched some of those places before, I swallow my bile back down. Sam pauses and then turns to look at himself in the mirror again, up and down, a frown and then a quick shaky smile, cock hanging out of his jeans, hands cupped against his chest, hiding what is there. Then he drops his hands to his sides and just looks at himself, moving to put himself in and button up. Sam may be insane to work out now—but it paid off, he is seriously hot, and then I realize that Sam is leaving, those are his good jeans, and his bag is packed he is going some where and he is never going anywhere without me, I'm pretty damn sure he promised me, if he meant any of it. I ask, since it seems reasonable to want to know: “What the hell, working out Sam? And then running away? Sometimes you make no damn sense!” because he doesn't. Sam must catch sight of me before he hears what I have to say, and for a moment this look crosses his face, soft and kind, and gentle, a look I saw in the half light that night. Then Sam must realize that I had been standing in the hall staring at him, so Sam looses it.

I reach the top of the stairs and catch sight of Dean watching Sam, and Sam, half-naked Sam, Sam's hands covering his... _Oh hell, so that's what the fuss is all about_.

Watching Sam and Dean in that moment I think so many things at once that I get damn nearly confused, the first of which is: I wish I had fixed that lock on the boy's room—that would be the guest room—door; the next of which is: now I know how Dads feel when they realize their girl is beautiful and innocent and they had better buy a shot gun now before anyone, at all, touches their girl, Sam's not a girl, but I'll deal with that later—and he has his own shotgun; another of which is that Dean has the same look of awe, and joy, incredulity and love watching Sam touch himself (what did I do to have to see that?) on his face as he did when Sam said his first word ('Dee', that was Sam's first word, apparently his first lover also from what they proceed to yell at each other, I did not need to know that), and Dean has the same look of guilt and need on his face as when I walked in on him at 14 with his daddy's copy of 'Busty Asia Beauties' (also on this list of things I wish I had never seen and the reason I put the lock on the boy's room door in the first place). The next thing that I think is that this isn't just Sam, isn't mainly Sam, is Dean also, that he loves Sam as his brother, his family, friend, as something sacred, and with absolute, resolute desire. This is a done deal. And there is very little innocent about Sam. This last thirty seconds has made the list of the top five things I wish I didn't know— and wish I didn't know too many things.

I'm yelling at Dean and I can't stop myself, and I wish I could because Bobby is right there, and he already knows too much, and him and Dean talking about me, and Dean not standing up and saying it out loud, does Dean think its ok to say things to me alone at night, to promise me things alone at night, and then deny them in the morning? Evening, whatever; I'm yelling at Dean, like I yelled at Dad, I can't stop and it feels as bad, worse, than that, because Dean is everything, and I need to leave him if he doesn't want me, I have to leave if he wants me. Yelling is apparently how I leave.

 _Dean, fuck you,_ and

 _Dean, don't you ever fucking listen to me_ , and

 _Dean, you never listen to a fucking thing I have to say_ ;

 _And Dean, I would have died for you, would die for you, I killed for you; and I'll leave you if that's what makes you safe_.

And Dean _do you think I would let you take my virginity if I didn't love you_?

Bobby is still standing there while Sam, whose shout is no more than a harsh gasp at this point, yells as best as he can at me that he meant it, all of it, and he loves me, and no, that's not going to change, and if I don't want us then he will leave, tonight, like Bobby suggested; and if I do want him he's going to have to leave tonite because they will kill me. I am caught between the relief that Sam loves me, and the horror that Sam would really die for me—which he I, I thought he, but still it can't be true, shouldn't be true—and the terror of loving him, and the fear of him leaving, and I can only say Sam's name. And if Sam being stupidly oblivious to his own beauty, and wet, and strong, and bruised (which I shouldn't find attractive, and might want to explore later, or never at all) and so damn vulnerable, unaware that he was being watched-not knowing that I was watching, because isn't that always the way with us-if that wasn't all enough the thought of Sam being cut does it for me (and that should be disturbing but its not, its just hot and I want to lick Sam down there where there is nothing between Sam's cock and his hole, and I shouldn't want to taste that, and shouldn't want to suck black bruises on such as private part of Sam). That and the though of being Sam's first lover (because Sam is one hell of a lot more than a fuck) and being Sam's only lover (my heart cracks a little where I had begun letting Jess in) and the thought of Sam not wanting anyone else to touch him there, and Sam is mine, which I should also look at later, like maybe never, but I want; and I love, and if this isn't real I'm really finished.

At least we all know how Sam feels now, and from the look on Dean's face, the saphire green in his eyes, the frown that takes over as he tries to get a word in edge-ways, the smile that creeps in edge-ways after that as Sam coughs out exactly what he means, that turns into a broad smile that Dean is trying to repress, we all know what Dean feels also, at least I do. I hope both the boys do.

Bobby doesn't say anything about it, us, me and Sam-even though I am standing in the the hallway gaping at Sam, and Sam, having just declared his love for me, is staring back, because we can't exactly kiss, fuck, fall all over each other, touch each other, I want him to touch my cock, I want to suck on his cock, I want to cup his little titties in my hands, I want to suckle on his nipples first one and then the other, I shouldn't even think those things in front of Bobby. Bobby just says 'Boys we should sort things out, I have a short trip coming up tomorrow and I just want to go over some things with you before then.' Then he heads down to the kitchen leaving Sam and me gaping at him as much as at each other. Sam and I have someone on our side, and its such a damn relief I could just about cry...but that's Sam's thing. Sam is sitting on the bed looking so tired, face dusty, and tear stained and too white, and him ready to shout more, because shouting is where he goes when he hurts. How much hurt didn't I miss when he was in high school and dogging Dad's every plan, in middle school and I left him alone at Fucky-Penny-whistle-or-whatever-the-fuck-with no family to count on. And I'm about to say as much when he answers me: “You asked if I meant it? I meant it.” That simple. Then Sam adds: “Did you?” It comes out as an accusation and a challenge and I have to steady myself not to shout back at him, I don't trust myself to speak, so I just look at him; I'm standing at the door to our room feeling stupid, still wearing the clothes I put on this morning.

“Do you think she's ok?” Sam asks because, apparently, he has no intention of taking part in the most important discussion of our lives.

“Yeah, she'll be ok.” Like I know, because she was kind of Sam's friend, and he only asked because he thinks we should have done something for her; and I have no more intention than Sam does of taking part in the most important discussion of our lives. Neither of us talks about James, we know he's good.

“We should get you showered.” It's a dumb thing to say, Sam might still be leaving, just because Bobby said we could stay doesn't mean Sam will-given his track record- his packed bag is still sitting there at the foot of the bed, his feet are still bare, his t-shirt still in his hand, at least he managed to get his jeans on unsupervised, and I'm telling him what to do again. Sam heads into the shower while I'm still trying to figure out, figure out...stuff. I'm not good at waiting. This isn't how sex goes if you're me, what happens is I go to a bar, buy a good looking (to be clear) woman, some drinks, and she says yes or no, and if I got a yes we go to her place, or the Impala or whatever and do whatever works, and everyone has an orgasm or two, and no one asks for anyone's phone number and we say 'thank you' and I leave, or she leaves, but someone leaves. But I find myself sitting on the bed that had been, has always been, Sam's. I don't even know what to hope for.

Dean, fucking Dean, pulls me in pushes me away, pulls-pushes me apart—relentlessly breaks me. I open my eyes in the shower to push away the image of Dean held at gun point, push away the image of him every time he is hurt, frightened, trying so hard be ok for me, strong, perfect to me, and I want him like he is. There is that jolt in my groin, barely noticeable anymore, but next to that is my inability to breathe, the deep twist, the electricity under my skin, and next to it the fear that I can't wash off. I run the soap and a cloth over my throat, open my eyes again, look around at the shower, a lifetime of familiarity, of Bobby calling to hurry up or I won't get dinner, of Dean telling me to brush my teeth, and clean behind my ears; except that Dean isn't really telling me to brush my teeth but Bobby really is calling us for dinner—and I'm so grateful for Bobby's ability to make anything normal.

Bobby doesn't say anything about it, us, me and Dean—not harshly (I don't think ) but just because we have said it, all except thanking him. Our backs against the wall—scareder than we've ever been before, running in front of something that is all around us, Dean nearly, fuck, nearly...and I didn't need to think about it, I didn't really need to say to Dean: We are going to Bobby.

We have this whole conversation about what happened, without mentioning what Sam and me said. Bobby is somehow clear and gruff and kind and just the same as he has ever been even though he knows what Sam did to himself and what I did to Sam. Bobby tells us _'ya' had better be at the house till Friday_ ', ' _keep things afloat_ ' and ' _hopefully ya' idj'iots won't screw it up_ ', Apparently he had an emergency fishing trip, and we should ' _probably have found a hunt by Friday_ ' so he'll be back by then but since Bobby claims to need us to man the phones we have a safe place to stay for a few days. Bobby sets about banging about his house gathering up his fishing tack, shuffling through papers and sorting through the right weapons to kill several magical fish and a succubus or two, Ariel, sending me and Sam up stairs, because, apparently, Sam and I need to sleep it off and talk it out...order not important to Bobby.

I hear them scuttling about upstairs, Dean showering, Sam scuffling through his bag, probably slipping into sleeping clothes and sitting waiting, pretending to be asleep, waiting for Dean, same as they always have been. I hope the two of them have the sense to lock the door _properly_ and then not do anything that requires a locked door while I'm still home.

Dean comes back from showering, already in his sweats and Tee - I guess we are planning on talking - I'm dreading it, sitting here on the edge of my bed, single bed, hands on my knees, breathing through it. I said everything I had to say, Bobby will still be here for us no matter what the outcome of our discussion; or here for the one of us who is more shattered and left behind to wait. I hold out a hand to Dean and he lets himself be pulled in to sit beside me, pulls his hand loose from mine and rubs it through my hair, lets me reach an arm around him to pull him close, rests his head on my shoulder. Instead of the locked up tension in my throat, instead of the insidious terror that has been inside me the whole day (all of it worse any moment Dean was out of my sight) I'm calm, quiet, steady, settled, solid—I know what I want, I'm pretty sure of what Dean wants. I rest my head against his, just relax into it, take his free hand in mine, let our fingers intertwine, lift our hands together and kiss Dean's knuckles, look under my bangs to see him smiling and – face soft and open, eyes deep green and gentle – peaceful.

We wait, I can't think what to say, and Dean tries a couple of times, I can hear him take a breath, hold it, and then let it out again.

“It's ok.” Sam says quietly, at last. “You don't need to say it, just tell me if you don't...”

“I do,” says Dean. We both laugh, because I meant it, 'I do,'-today is over, and we can rest.

We spent the whole day wanting to touch and it turns out tonight touching is quiet and kind, me pulling Dean down on top of me, pulling Dean's shirt off over his head, and Dean not protesting when I hold the hem of mine down when he tugs at it; touching is laying together, Dean's head on my chest; touching is stroking open handed over his body, sliding a hand partially into the back of his sweats but no further, being allowed all of him, but being cautious and Dean not asking for me; touching is Dean starting to get hard as we lay together, but his eyes falling shut as he makes little happy noises, slowly rubbing himself on my thigh but with very little intent; touching is not taking yet, is falling slowly asleep with Dean's 'I do.' being enough to promise me home.

I want Sam so deeply, and he is being so careful with me, and he's alive, and I'm in his arms—which does not, under any circumstances, make me the girl in this relationship; my laying my head on his chest and letting him kiss the back of my neck does not, in the least, constitute submission; my letting him feel me, touch me where he pleases does not mean that he is taking control of who touches who when; my falling asleep with both my hands held in one of his giant paws does remind me of why I said I do to Sam, of what can be so perfect about this relationship. Relationship. I'm sort of hard, instinctively rocking against him but I'm perfectly safe, and I should be embarrassed to fall asleep, but Sam lets me, and it feels right.

I'm leaving early tomorrow morning, leaving Rumsfeld to guard over the boys, we have some thing resolved with them at least, and the last of it left to them alone—they seem to have picked sleep over talking, and – perhaps there really is a god who gives a damn – over doing what they really want, a kindness to an old man.

 _If there was a god who really gave a damn these two wouldn't have been born brother_ s.

 

**Early morning**

I stop by their bed-room door as I leave at first light, to pull it the last two inches closed, not that I know why, they will have all the privacy they need in the next few days, but still. I look in on them, years of habit: Dean is sleeping pushed up against Sam, head on Sam's chest; Sam is holding Dean snugly in place with one strong arm wrapped around his brother, Dean's hands held in place by the other, their legs caught and tangled. They look so peaceful – more than I have ever seen them - my heart knows its a blessing that they can be that way with each other...my head just can't go to that place yet. I want to go in their room, push Sam's hair back from his face, kiss Dean's forehead, read them a bed time story even though its already dawn and they are fast asleep—I never had a chance to do that one last time before they were grown up and gone.

Friday things will be different between my boys one way or another, and I hope for them that they will have left together, rather than my finding one broken boy here—I don't know if that is a fair thing to wish on these young men. The part of my heart that loves them with no reason knows it will be for the best if they leave together, but the part of my heart that made wishes for them when they were children is still broken for what they are giving up.

 

**Morning**

It's morning, sort of, more noon, and Sam is nowhere in sight. I've been frightened enough these last few days that it shouldn't be able to get worse, but it can. Sam is gone, and my heart, there should be a place where my heart used to be, I think there is because I can't think well enough to be sure, I can't breathe, I can see Sam's face as I looked at him last night from a weird angle - all tucked up on his chest – that I hadn't seen him from before; I'd spent my life looking at him, and found a new place. I'm still warm from the spot where he was on the bed, his bed, our bed, his bed; I touch it trying to figure out when he left, how far away he is, the barking of Rumsfeld in the junk yard sounds distant, and I stumble up—wiling my feet to find themselves and fucking hurry, time to find Sam, or at least the note he left, he'd have had the decency to leave a note while he broke my heart – our hearts – he wouldn't just run off twice, three times, not after I made a commitment to him, he would have left me a note, not just taken his bag, his bag, did Sam take his bag?

Dean is flying out of bed as I bring our coffee up-stairs. He looks wild, green eyes wide open—owl on a bad day; I wonder what's gone wrong now, because the outstanding problem in my life is that anything could go wrong any moment. Two steps and he is at the door as I'm elbowing it completely open, I have to spread my arms to avoid spilling the coffee as he barrels into my chest, his hands forwards, reaching up and pushing me backwards hard against the door frame, (which sort of hurts because the fuckers are sensitive) then his fingers ghosting over my breasts and then tweaking my nipples between pointer and index fingers—dear, sweet, fuck, god in heaven, that's the way to get the eunuch (word is still not working for me) interested—I'm willing never to talk about any of this if Dean keeps on touching me there. Instead Dean reaches out for his mug of coffee, smiles his wicked smile, and paddles back to bed, patting the spot next to him as an invitation to come sit with him.

The look of bewilderment on Sam's face is almost worth my panic, the look of pure pleasure as I lay my hands hard on his chest is even more almost worth the panic; him eyes wide, licking his lips, as my fingers tug his nipples is definitely worth the panic. Luckily for me Sam doesn't know that I thought he left, and panicked—luckily I'm Dean Winchester and I can play it cool, Sam will never need to know that something was up.

The brother in me so wants to give Dean shit about panicking because I went to make coffee. The lover in me wants to leave him with his dignity—at least for now, and save the teasing till after I've got properly laid. I'm scared of doing this, but its not heart pounding, insurmountable, its just present, not as much as my need for Dean is present, needing him intrinsically part of every now.

Sam sits, leans over, sets his coffee down and tries to kiss me, as though he has some right after scaring the shit out of me.

Dean pulls back—bastard. I point out to him that I've been waiting for years for this. Dean points out to me that waiting a few more minutes for him to pee and brush his teeth and drink his coffee isn't going to do me any harm then. I could just about kill him. But, as he pointed out, I would rather he didn't pee on me— toddlers pee on people by accident, he can't seriously still be holding that against me.

Sam is all over me—give a guy a chance Sammy. He bites me, literally fucking bites me on my neck - not a neatly sucked hickey - holes in the skin, teeth marks and blood, ripping the muscle underneath kind of bite. Sex with Sam is not going to be all sweet loving and gentle flowers—I'm pretty damn sure Sam said rainbow farts and true love only. He tips my head back with a Sasquatch mitt and pushes my mouth open with a thumb, and that's it, I need to pee before this gets any more intimate—or violent. Also I need to figure out how to get my head between his legs because I need to suck on his soft cock, and with the way he is going at it I think he might get hard today. I want it to be just the right size on my tongue, I wonder if it has shrunk already (didn't expect that to make me dizzy) if it will shrink more, if I can suck all of him into my mouth without choking, what he will feel like if he starts to get hard in my mouth, his cock gradually filling out all the space between my tongue and pallet, nudging at my gag reflex as I suck. I want to gag around his cock, my throat closing as I can't breath and sucking anyhow as I get short of breath, as I choke on him and make him let me keep going, fight my body to let him keep going till he spurts drops of clear cum on my lips.

No idea what Dean is thinking of, but I hope he is thinking of doing it to me, he is getting hard and I want to reach out and touch. I also want him to stop staring at my crotch, go pee and whatever and get back here as soon as damn possible. He perks up and does as told when I clarify what I need.

I lay down and wait for Dean—he's wrong, waiting the extra five minutes might kill me. I want him so fucking badly, and I have a cloying fear in me, starting with yesterday, what they nearly did, what they did to me yesterday, I don't want that in my head, ever again for that matter, but definitely while Dean and me are...I'm angry, not that rage that used to follow me, not that burning anger that I even felt yesterday, I still feel it dark and blood when I think of them nearly hurting Dean—they don't get to have taken this. I close my eyes, and it's right there, the feel of the barrel against my lips, the taste of gun oil, which used to be the smell only of family, that blade where Dean touched already, and where he hadn't. I shouldn't want violence – pain - to solve this, but I want him to mark me up, I want him to fuck my face, I want him to bite and twist and pull and dig his nails into my nipples, claw along my breasts, leave marks, if marks can be left I want him to leave marks. I want this all, my heart beats faster, my breathing becomes slower, shallower, I lick my lips and let myself touch my chest, and slide a hand into my sweat pants, over my groin where I have the slightest pulse in my cock, where I feel warm, but I'm not getting hard—even with the thought of Dean all over me.

I get back to Sammy touching himself, one hand tweaking a nipple, one hand in his pants where I can see him tugging his little soft cock, cock-head nudging against the cloth of his sweat pants, making a wet mark with pre-cum. He is biting his bottom lip and pushing up into his hand. “Dean,” his eyes are hooded, his nipples erect and pushing up against his t-shirt, his shirt ridden up to show a strip of skin and I can clearly see where Sam has shoved that hand into his pants.

“Let me, Sammy.” it's rough, and saturated with need, and with I want. Dean, still in his sweatpants, bounces down on the bed next to me, pulls both my hands behind my head, holding them in place for a second, “This ok?” Dean asks. Dean being so careful with me is new, and good. He pulls my shirt up and over both head and hands, rearranging my hands after. Dean reaches over “'This ok?” he mouths the question as much with his eyes as his voice, waits a moment, then tugs my sweat pants down, throws them off the bed, eyes avoiding my crotch for a moment. “Gimme a second,” Dean says, reaching for his own pants and then stopping with a concerned look on his face.

Sam, his mouth slightly open, tongue pushes against his lower teeth, his lips already a little swollen, and flush creeping down his chest; Sam spread out like dinner – breakfast - Sam his knees pulled up, his cock, head wet, hanging down between his legs, and I know that his tight hole behind there is waiting for me, at lest I hope it is, because that's what my cock is waiting for. Fuck. Sam has never seen me with my cock hard before, at least not intentionally, not with intention, not like this, with need for him all over me. The last people who wanted to fuck him, oh jesus fuck, they weren't going to ask, they were just going to, to –

I need to ask him if it's ok with him, but he looks so ready, and I don't want to take him back there, I'm starting to feel a bit stupid for asking, very turned on, just a bit stupid—its a deal I can take. “Take them off Dean,” Sam says before I get to the asking part, the rawness to his voice a reminder of yesterday, “and quit asking me.” He lifts his ass inviting me in.

“Can I suck you?” I ask Sam, and we both start laughing, him nodding, and me scrambling between his open legs.

Oh, oh god, because he's pretty down here, his hair is fine and soft, I knew that from touching him before, his soft cock is smaller than I had thought it would be after we jerked him off, I smooth it out the way, rub a work roughened thumb over its soft silkiness, and look, just look at that place between his legs with nothing in it. The scarring is a mess, twists of pink and white along a long seam, longer than it needed to be - cut to hurt - lines of white dots where Sam restitched himself, a little pock-mark most way towards his hole where he must have forced a catheter in, I know I blush, my cock jumps, I want to do that to him, to be the person who cut him down here—I want to be the person who makes Sam pee sitting down. I wish I was the person who cut the balls off Sammy, who got to hear him scream in pain, pulled his sack down low and cut it all off, blade along his groin, blood everywhere, a dangerous painful way to castrate a man, I want to have been the man who got to give Sammy what he always needed. I tug on his cock, not harshly, just firm, and when he jerks his hips into it, I pull and twist hard, and it must hurt like a bitch, “More?” Sam asks, quiet, gasps, “more.” I want to be the person to finish what he started, to take this off, if he will let me.

Dean is fisting, twisting, jerking, hurting my cock with one hand, the other running careful finger tips, callouses and nails, along the scaring between my legs, pushing the tips over - as close to into as he can - the place where I had to open myself to pee. “I'm not getting hard,” I whisper to him, and he makes some kind of grunt in acknowledgment, I hope is that he doesn't see this as some kind of rejection of him, or reaction to yesterday. Dean's touch reminds me that there is more that I don't need between my legs. I don't hate it, just don't need it, don't know. I want Dean to have it. After a moment Dean says “Good.” then goes on playing with me, “This is all mine Sammy,” eyes so soft, “All mine?”

Definitely not the right time to remind him that 'It's Sam' and Sammy is a pudgy twelve year old, right now 'Sammy' is a castrated man trying to fuck into his brother's hand—absolutely an adults only activity. “Christ Dean, yours, all of it, anything you want, all of it.”

Dean sucks hard, nips hard, kisses me there, scraps his teeth on the space between my cock and my hole, marking me. Desire dripping from his voice Dean adds: “Perfect Sammy, perfect down here Sam, perfect for me, perfect for now.” Then hes grabs my thighs to force then further apart - there will be bruises - and sucks me in, but that last part is tentative, but taking all of because I'm just the right size for him. His mouth is warm, soft, careful teeth, and Dean, anything, oh god, anything Dean wants to do to me ever is ok with me, as long as he does this now.

My mouth is full of Sam, the taste, smell, feel of his cock in my mouth, its bitter and sweet and a little dusty, a hint of pee, and Sam – whatever I mean by that. I suck, want to bruise the whole thing, leave it painful between his legs, but I let it slide out so that only the head is in my mouth, and close my teeth, not viciously, but enough so that Sam knows I'm using my teeth. “Harder” he pushes up into me, which is sort of useless because he's still soft, “Fuck, harder Dean, please.” I close my teeth more feeling the rubbery resistance. “Actually bite me you fucking bastard!” I don't know if this is Sam's version of dirty talk, or if it is abuse, although Sam's version of sex might ping some radars as abuse. My version of sex with Sam might.

Dean refuses, outright refuses. Hell, fuck, no? He lifts his head, looks me in the eyes and says, “I love you, and I won't hurt you.” I'm fucking blown away, pulse pounding blown away, he says it again. This time he says it fiercely, angry: “I fucking love you Sam Winchester, all of you, just like you are. Do not tell me to hurt you.” Dean moves up over me, is straddling me, cock only half hard now. “Jesus Sammy, what else do you want, do you want that gone too?” I intend to shake my head because it is all so much more complicated than that, my balls-god I hated those things, wanted them gone, off, they never belonged on me, hated seeing them, hated knowing what they did to my body. My cock, I don't know, I think I needed to experience sex as something I wanted, Jess and I wanted, not as my body and me just reacting to what my fucking balls wanted, I think I wanted to keep my cock then, but now I don't know. It's never really been what I needed, Jess wanted me like that, Dean,when he touched me before, when he gave me what might be my only orgasm, that was perfect. When I didn't need my cock to pee, when I peed out of that hole, that's when I knew I could really be smooth - but Jess and I wanted. I let my cock shrink for months before I did anything about it, to kind of see how it was to not have a guy's cock down there—I panicked when I stared leaking. Leaking will be way worse without anything down there, and I don't care. I might almost want it. Now I just want him to take me, make me his, scar me, never let anyone else near me. If he gave me what I really want he would make love to me, make me feel perfect and then take it off; take his throwing knife, pull my cock tight and slide that blade over the base, at the bottom of my shaft, against my pubic bone, let me scream his name; I'd let him, want him to, do it bloody and dangerous – he'd hurt me, but he'd never let me die; burn me shut so I don't bleed out, so the first scar between my legs is his; let him cut a hole into me low between my legs so I have to sit when I pee, so every time I pee I remember that I'm his; I want him to mark me so the he can suck that scar where my cock was, can twist his tongue in little hole that he cut, fuck that little opening with his tongue, with a finger forced into me, and he can remind me that he and me, not me and Jess, not me and some doctor, but us, we made my body into this, made me into a grown man without cock and balls.

Sounds like something Dean would say no to.

But he doesn't: “If you knew Sam, if you had the first idea of how much I want you, how much I want to do to you, and how much I love you, you wouldn't ask me for that.” I have no, as in none, no idea of what I just said aloud to Dean. His hands are on my shoulders now, he is holding me down against the bed, “You would never ask me for that if you knew how much I want to own you, to make you mine forever, if you knew how I would do that, that I would...” Dean trails off, “I would hurt you Sam.” and he's bailing out of bed.  Fuck, again, just fuck.

I hit the floor hard - Bobby has never been one to invest in plush carpets - and I'm regretting that right now. Sam follows, throws me onto my back, him on top this time, both of us grappling at each other. “Don't leave, just, Dean...” Sam might be at a loss for words, but its probably my kiss that shuts him up, gives me the element of surprise allowing me to flip us. I rip my mouth off of his, I don't intend to shake him hard enough that his head is banging against the floor, “Let me fucking make love to you Sam, or let me out of this thing, let me go.”

Dean is fucking hysterical. He hauls us upright, throws me back against the wall, and decks me one in the face. I've got it now, he won't hurt me. (Me thinks the lady doth protest too much.) He stops short, “Sammy?” he must realize that he was hurting me proving a point about not hurting me. “Fuck, Sam?” If this is Dean's version of foreplay and not hurting me—my cock, my hole, take a fucking interest.

Its not that I don't want to 'make-love', I want to be gentle with Dean, kiss him the places I've never kissed him, anyone kissed him, open him up, slide my tongue up in him, slide my cock up inside him just once, and fuck him slowly and carefully, and not let him do anything, just let himself be carefully loved, let me kiss every freckle, and lick a little at his neck where I bit him, and maybe bite him again.

Sam hauls off and bites me again. “Sam, dammit, that's not how you bite people when you're having sex!” just my opinion, but I thought now was a good time to share, before anyone actually gets hurt. Shit, I hear myself in my head, 'Sam that's not how you tie your shoes.' ' _Is how I tie my shoes._ ' 'Sam that's not how you make cereal.' ' _Is how I make cereal_.' 'Sam that's not how you clean a gun.'' Is how I clean a gun.' (That last one scared the shit out of me.) If I don't want a fight on the magnitude of _'Is how I clean a gun_ '. I could let this go, but I figure someone might actually get hurt.

Sam is looking at me open mouthed, “Is how I...” I catch him unawares with a left hook, grab him and manhandle him onto the bed.

Christ does Dean always have to be angry with me, and always correcting me, and has nothing fucking changed between us? (Except, well, fucking...maybe.)

“Listen to me?”

In all the years Dean has parented me, has been my partner, brother, the person I couldn't tell anything and needed to tell everything he has always yelled: 'Listen to me!” Various versions: 'You'll get yourself killed unless you listen to me!' 'You don't even try to listen to me!' 'Just this damn once listen to me!' Dad yelled it: “Now listen to me Son!”

I don't mean to whisper in Sam's ear, I don't mean to brush his hair back as I ask, but he needs to know, and finally, Dean Winchester is forced to talk-lucky Sam gets to hear me pour my heart out. Great. This is a whole shit load more complicated than a pick up in a bar. So to save this entire thing, the thing that is us I ask Sam to listen to me. “I want you Sam, I want you because I love you, and I can't help it, maybe we shouldn't, but I do.”

Good start there Dean, makes things so much clearer.

But I'm listening, so I shut up.

“I,” how am I meant to say this? “I want to make love” oh, god, do I have to. “I want to,” I make myself look at him, “I want this to be forever. I want to hurt you.” Sam looks at me, frowning, because, he's right, that what I just refused to do. “Badly.”

I reach a hand out for Dean, try to anyhow but he still has me pinned—one way of making sure I will listen. “Sam?” Sam keeps staring at me, I keep telling him the truth. “I can't let myself, not now, not right now, what you asked, that's for later, we can do that later, but for now...” I take a deep breath, “I will ask you if anything and everything is ok, if you don't like me asking you can just deal.” He leans in to kiss my forehead, my nose (seriously? I'm not three), brush on my lips: “I won't do anything that requires sutures, or and ER trip, or not, if you would rather leave it, I won't leave bruises on you that look like a monster, of any sort, made them, I won't tear your skin open with my teeth, and I won't let you do any of that to me.” He kisses my mouth more firmly this time: “Let me just give you this.”

We breathe again.

“Rainbows and unicorns?” Sam is smiling. He looks all soft around the edges as he sneaks his hands free to hold mine. “It's ok Dean, it's not like we know what we are doing.”

Dean snorts. But its not like we know what we are doing. What I have, this need, this is taking over for me, its not about sex, its not about being owned, its about Dean, about making us into something that can never be broken.

Dean leads my own hands over my body, “Don't let them take this, be here, ok?” His hands skirt over my hips and then he leads them to my chest and sets my hands so they are covering my breasts, a little push tells me to leave them there. “Keep quiet and let me, ok?”

Sam nods. Must be the first time ever Sam has agreed with me just like that. Sam's eyes don't leave my face as I slide my hands over his glorious abs, his slick skin that won't let go of his California tan, let my thumbs trace his mid-line, pause over his belly-button and circle it for a moment, (he makes a snort out a giggle – always does, and I love it when he looks that pissed off like that) let my hands explore the sharp bones, the softness, the dips, the lines of his hips, and let myself touch his cock again. I close it in a hand, finding a rhythm of small pumps that makes his eyelids fall half shut, and stroke down to his ass and back up again with the other, gentle where he needed to change his body, gentle touch over our secret. I brush fingers over his tight hole, and he smiles at me, dimple smiles, lights up my life (crap, what is happening to me, unicorns must be doing something to me) smiles, I've always loved it when he smiles like that. Shit, Sam, Sammy,I never ever thought that this is how I'd make you smile.

“Christ, Sam, can I really?”

“Touch me there?” Sam breathes it out, and I don't know if he is asking what I mean by that or telling me what he wants. But he doesn't pull away so I circle a finger around the dusty skin outside, lick the tip of a finger and push into him. Sam makes a noise that if I could call a whimper, a little needy sound, something that would have got my attention immediately at anytime. Dean told me to lay still and I do—as hard as that is. I didn't know, had never thought of Dean's hands stroking my whole body as something beautiful, touching my scaring, fingers around, not in - I want them in - my ass, as loving. Never though of this kind of touch as caring. But Dean is taking care of me, this is taking care of me, and he's done that before, loved me before, touched me with gentle hands, hands that make things better. Dean touches my cock , waits for a moment for my nod, Dean plays with my soft cock, confident and gentle, as though he owns the thing, as he runs his thumb over the head, callouses dragging, not hurting, just a different feel, waits for a moment to see if I will stop him before he tucks his thumb into the slit and rubs it, opens my soft cock as much as he can, I can't help it, I whimper, everything in the world comes down to Dean touching me, looking at me with his lips parted, his eyes hooded; Dean giving me something I didn't know I could want.

I feel a pulse in Sam's cock and ask, didn't know how many questions came with sex, but of course me and Sam to need rules so we don't kill each other trying to love each other, ask if I should try to make him harder—the unasked part of the question is he sure he wants this gone, because he seems to be enjoying it, and I'll want him either way. Sam shakes his head, no, he wants this with his cock soft so he can think about us, not about sex, he answers the unasked part also, that's part of why he wants it gone, to think about us. Whatever, ok, I want that too, but I want the sex part also. Also, somewhere in our crap is the lube, this is going to need the lube.

Dean is reaching to dig through his bag for lube without getting up or moving his hand from me, he looks way too serious, and he ends up looking stupid. I try not to laugh but he's my brother and he looks like an idiot so I have to. Bad decision, Sam.

He gets up and leaves.

Not very leaves, just takes his coffee, and buck-naked heads for the bed-room door. “I can't do this.” I'm bewildered, what is it that Dean suddenly can't do? He'd, we'd been doing just fine seconds ago. “You're my brother, my little brother, and I want to fuck you until your whole body is soft in my hands.” Dean looks as though he is going to cry. Crap, just crap. Dean? “Sammy want to fuck you until you are begging me to stop because it feels so good you can't take it anymore, and you can't think about us and love because all you can think about is me deep in your ass. I want to fuck you with my tongue, my fingers, my cock, I want my hand up inside you Sam. I want to kiss all of you, taste all of you, suck marks on all of you, leave teeth marks between your legs Sam, bite marks on your tits deep enough that there's blood, pull on your nipples until they are swollen and bruised and hurting and you want me to stop touching them but you don't ask because you know how much I love to do it , because you love the pain, because I'm the only person you let hurt you and it makes you as mine. I want to hold you down so hard that the black bruises on your wrists, your shoulders, your thighs are only from me, then I want to ask you to lay still – just lay there- and I want to finish castrating you.” Dean is standing there between the door and the bed, starting at me, his cock leaking pre-cum and bobbing against his belly. “Does that sound like something you do to your little brother?”

My mouth must be hanging open, showing my utter confusion, because Dean, standing coffee in hand, adds: “You can't just suddenly act like my brother when I'm about to shove my...up your...” He makes a gesture with his free hand. Sam rolls his eyes, all little brother Sam again; and that's the problem, that's who I want—grown up Sam at any rate. I just thought of him, us, what we are together, and how that is changing, will change forever once I fuck him, and once, once we...if we. I was about to change everything and then he reminded me who we are and I can't risk that. Sam sits up in bed, grabs his coffee, slides over: “Sit.” It's demanding. We haven't lost the part of us where Sam is demanding. It's easier to do what he asks, and anyhow it means I'll be sitting next to him. “We need to talk.” Sam announces, he looks completely serious, and completely with it, as though realizes that I meant it, I can't. I, on the other hand, all I can think about is Sam, and fucking, and needing Sam, because I don't think I can want anyone else ever again - so I'm not sure I can talk about anything.

“Here,” says Sam, and takes a gentle hold wrapping his hand around my wrist. I swallow, because any touch from Sam right now takes me closer to orgasm. “We are brothers Dean, it's part of why we can trust each other with this, this—this isn't a simple love, never has been, this part of you is all I haven't had before, its something I've never had with anyone before, but I've always been your brother, and I'll be after, we'll be after. What we want together is, fuck Dean, dangerous, and beautiful, its better than just being brothers. You said to Bobby, 'brother'. We're more than that, and its too late for us to go back.” I hear all that through a blur—and, what the hell, he was listening in on a private conversation between me and Bobby, and misinterpreting it, because he is so oversensitive about everything; I want him so much, then he tugs on my arm, grabs me over, and I'm straddling him, his narrow hips under me and me sitting over his cock, fingers intertwined with his. “Dean, I want something from you that no one in their right mind would ask their brother, and you didn't just say yes, you want it Dean, as much as I do.” Sam lifts our hands together to his chest, his eyes never leaving mine, he extends my index fingers and he circles our fingers around towards his nipples, slow and careful, and making little nubs of pink, he lets me roll his nipples with my thumbs. Even Rumsfeld shuts up. I can see Sam breathing steady though his nose, his soft cock getting a little firmer against my balls. “This isn't something,” Sam whispers in my ear, “that you do with anyone who's _just_ your brother.”

That cut was deeper than I want Sam to know, and he keeps putting it back out there. “You said just, just my...” Anyone normal wouldn't remember that moment, they would have been focused on nearly dying, but Sam broke my heart...that's as good as dead. Sam doesn't look confused, he knows exactly what he said, and now he better come up with a really good reason why he said it.

“They were going to kill you because of me, us.” Sam sucks carefully on my neck, an apology for the assault of earlier, and I think to give himself a chance to pull himself together, yesterday hasn't just gone away. “Dean I can't live with that.” Sam has stopped doing anything except holding onto me, “You don't need to live with that, with what I am, need. If they thought I wasn't your lover, your fault, then I thought...” Sam is a stupid fucking idiot, but we all knew that already. There is no way they thought he wasn't my lover, shared room, fight in the dinner – looking back I can see how that could have been misinterpreted - him stepping in for me at the rodeo, heading off together to the barn, out of town. Sam raises his thighs effectively trapping me, locking me forward onto his chest, breasts, sweet fuck. His breasts against my pecs feel divine. “This is never going to get better Dean, even with everything gone I'll still live between words and people don't like that.” Sam snorts, “People kill over that.” I hold Sam as tightly to me as I can, if anything, that, happens to Sam, Is don't know, I don't know if I can. “So, ' _just_ '', just was a lie, just was to save you, Dean, this is more than just.” Sam takes a big breath: “And if you don't want more than that, more than _just_ brothers, now is the time to tell me to get out – because it will destroy me to have to say to _myself_ that brother is all you are to me.”

I kiss Sam's neck, jaw, face, tug on his lips. We sit there forever, I'm hard enough that I hurt, I can't feel Sam from where I'm in his lap – so I assume he is soft again. I'm taking my final decision here, no take backs, no do-overs. My body needs, and my head isn't clear, but my heart is: this is what I want, this, us, everything, Sam ready for me, waiting for me to make love to him. (I'll never get used to that word.)

“More.” Dean says, voice steady, bringing both hands to my face, making me look up at him.

Sam is whispering my name: “De'n, Dean, De'n, please...” That's my cue to rearrange us again, sliding my thighs between his legs to keep them apart, sliding him down on the bed so he is looking up at me. Sam smiles softly, sort of dazed, the look he gets after he's been thrown against a wall but he knows I'm there, I'm coming to get him. “Get the lube Dean,” He flashes his magic smile at me, lets himself relax onto his back, pulls his feet up by his hips, tips his ass up so I have easy access - he must have watched a but load of porn when he was trying to make himself come - and starts to play with his soft cock, run his fingers back and fourth to his hole, he knows exactly what he does to me. I can top all I want and Sam is still going to be running the show.

Dean smears lube on my hole, its cold, I close my eyes, take a breath, cold like metal, like the blade he will put between my legs one day. Dean's circles his finger on my sensitive skin raising goose bumps, I've never even wanted to be touched there before Dean. Dean asks, he asks, and I guess this going to be our new thing. He pushes in, its a tight fit, I think Dean may have used more than one finger, that may be what he asked me, I wasn't really paying attention, that little ring of muscle feels hot and painful stretched further than it is made to go but Dean is in me, part of Dean is inside of me; all the air leaves my body, my head is light, I'm not so much seeing stars as feeling them, I'm so fucking relieved it's Dean in me.

“Sam? Here? Now.” Dean is holding us against each other, pushing his fingers in deeper. Oh, oh, Jesus, fuck, this is what, this why, god, Dean, please. Sam is babbling as I fuck him with two fingers, I wonder what the hell will happen when all of me is in there. Its a good thing I promised him I would make love to him, because given a choice right now I would just plain force myself in and fuck him until he cried. I can't believe I want that. I make myself ask before I add a third finger, careful not to hurt him, this is for now. Sam whimpers, begs, says things I need to hear, says how he wants me, wants me to be in him, wants me to be his first everything, his only anything, he wants me to be his last everything, wants more fingers in him, more of me in him, that his hole is just for me; that he wants my cock in him, that his cock will only ever be mine. I begin to stretch him out, feel him flutter around my fingers, waiting for me. Then I stroke over his sweet spot.

All I ever need there to be is Dean. I reach for him, tangle our legs as he forces his fingers deeper - sweet heat that he pulls out of me, I rock with him, everything, his smell that I've know all my life, the salt of his sweat, the warmth of him against me, his body so hard, stronger than me, able to put me where he wants me, able to hold me down and fuck me as he chooses, all I want is him. I feel him shifting, changing up, pushing me onto my back, helping me arrange myself for him to fuck as deep into me as possible. I move with what he needs, let him decide how he wants to take me. “Please?” Dean breathes in my ear, “Please can I?” Dean asks and I feel loved, and 'Yes, Dean.' Not just for now but forever. The first the push of his cock head as he pulls his fingers out of me to guide it in, the stretch around him, made harder and easier by the guiding fingers, the the burn of his length which has me gripping his shoulders, sucking on his neck, wrapping my legs more tightly around his waist, giving him more access, him filling me, its a strange sensation, but he's my truth. This is how we were made to be. Dean is kissing my face, I close my eyes so all I can do is feel, his breath is warm over my checks and I realize there are tears, and he must realize that these mean something, aren't just this last week of my hormones changing into what I will be now, Dean is rubbing his thumbs over where the tears have left tracks down my face; Dean is kissing my half closed eye lids, letting his breath brush my lips. I lift my head just enough to kiss Dean, to slide my tongue along his lips, to let our tongues push against each other. Dean this close to me pulls a current from my heart, my need for Dean opens me up. “Did I hurt you Sam?” Dean is suddenly all green eyes and concern, hands holding my head, stroking in my hair, “Is this ok? Me in you?” He is suddenly, utterly, still and, so am I. I cut myself to be aware of this moment, of only the love between oh, god, it was me and Jess, Dean so perfect—Dean's cock is pulsing in me, his hands holding me, his weight resting on me, his knees drawn up supporting me—completing us. Dean sits back sets his hands on my shoulders, I lock my legs around him, he holds me down, and he pushes as deep as he can into me. Dean pauses a moment and then brings his hands over my brests, touches them, circles them, tugs my nipples gently, and all I'm aware of his him, in and on me, and I want him to fuck me. I grab onto his hips and ask him to please, please, please take me.

Little shakes run though Dean, and I hold his hips to steady his rythem him, then still moving in me he brings his head down to my neck; it takes me a moment but I realize I'm not the only one who is emotionally overwhelmed, Dean is crying on my shoulder. Dean needs me. I rub a hand though his short hair shushing him, “It's perfect, we're perfect, you're perfect, everything I want, need, everything. I want to give myself to you like this Dean, always, want you taking me like this, need you in me like this.” My cock must rub over Sam's prostate because he goes from sweet words of love to 'More' and 'Harder' and 'Jesus Dean fuck me.' I'd take that as a yes, and I let myself go, let myself find a rhythm pushing into Sam. And he's right, this is right, he is all that I can think of as I watch his face transform to pure pleasure.

I'm going to be coming in Sam – all I can do is hold on for my life. I couldn't break out of his grip if I tried, he's pushing back against me, pulling me deeper, and making noises, saying 'perfect' over and over, saying “Dean” over and over. Everything else is white noise, if its not Sam warm and pliant around me, if its not his scent, his whispering, if its not his softness pushed against me, then it doesn't matter. My need for Sam coils where we meet - I'm going to come in Sam – his eyelids flutter every time I rub over what must be his sweet spot - his inside muscles contract around me in the rhythm I set-

I'm holding onto Dean so tight that my muscles are shaking, - I want it to hurt and I want it not to hurt. Dean pushing so hard we are moving the bed, I feel soft, spread out, open, light. Dean shifts, engulfs my nearly soft cock fully in a hand, holds it softly and slips the tip of a finger, pushes it, into my slit. The quiet, fullness of where he is fucking me spreads through me – my breathing slows, my body dissolves under him, letting him do most of the holding but I pull him tighter into me, the inside of my body grasping at him, trying to hold him in, hold the wet warmth of Dean's seed inside me - perfect, perfect for us.

Sam struggles, all legs like a colt, and then pulls us both down, leaving me sitting on him again, legs tangled in mine, pulling my whole body against him, letting me rest my head on those breasts, lick and kiss a nipple just because I can reach, and Sam can make the best noises.

“Didn't know we could have this.” Deans mutters. Then he licks and kisses me and lets my nipples form little numbs “Sam?” He is stroking a hand through my hair, “I'd do anything for you, you know that, right? I'll do what we talked talked about.” He pets me some more. “I'd go to hell for you.” Dean pulls my heart out and I find it in his hands. 'Don't you dare, don't you fucking dare, Dean.' I think. I pray that we never have to really deal with him doing something that stupid, this is not going to make me forget that Dean can do really stupid things.

“De'” pause, Sam says like when he was a kid, and I was only his big brother: “...love you.” when I had no idea he'd ever be strong enough to hold me onto his chest, rock me, let me rest all of my weight on him. This is the dumbest thing I've ever done, and Sam is my safe place.

 

**Lake Pahoja Recreation Area, Campsite 33 Sioux Falls, SD**

“John?” I may be a stupid romantic old man but I'm not dumb enough to have left those two to answer phones for me, I've put everything through to a couple of cell phones. John calling them would have been a train wreck, he's damaged those our boys enough already – there is a reason the last time I saw him he was on the wrong end of my shot gun. The last conversation I had with him was about Sam, and it was ugly. I can't believe he has the nerve to call me again, well, I can. Dean gets his stupid streak and Sam his stupidly stubborn one from John. They both get their courage and single minded passion from him – he had no idea where that was going to finish.

“John.”

“Yes, they don't trust you. No reason they would.” (Don't expect me to care how you feel after the mess you've left your boy's lives in.)

“No, don't John. Leave them be for a little while.” (You left Sam long enough.)

“Sam was hurting, I thought you might care.” (I'm sorry I ever said anything to you., pretty much like I always am.)

“John, you can't act as though nothing happened between you and Dean.” (He's calling you 'John' not Dad. You really hurt him.)

“You made him choose and he chose Sam.” (He chose being loved.)

“Leave them be John.” (Don't come anywhere near my boys.)

“Who did you tell?” (How in the hell could he be too drunk to remember who he told. Could he really have told Gordon? Because Gordon is the last person we can trust.)

“Lay off the booze, get it together, he said it wasn't your fault, don't make it about you.” (Not that I don't think the other thing isn't at least in part John's fault.)

I hang up – he will never let them alone. He will never accept Sam. He's not interested enough in who they really are to notice what is between them.

 

**Bobby's Kitchen**

Sam is sitting on Bobby's kitchen table dressed in only his jeans, legs dangling, feet bare, hair more messed up than usual, hands casually holding the edge the table on each side of him - relaxed. I look him up and down – I can have all that – and 'all that' wants his waffles just so; definitely sticking with calling him princess. Sam looks into space for a moment, then down examining, pawing at, his own breasts, tweaking a nipple, pulling at it, looking at it stretch.

“Your should pierce those.” Dean says out of the blue, not that I had been under the impression he wasn't watching me look at myself, he's always watching me. Dean runs his eyes down my body, he jerks his head and little, “Have you thought of...you know? Your?”

Have I thought of piercing my cock? Yep. Dean, putting a ring in the head, a ring down by my ass and keeping it in place, me not needing to touch it to pee, letting him be the only one to touch it. Until we... Dean is still staring at my groin.

“Use your words Dean.” _Bitch_. Sam knows exactly what I mean, I know that because his nipples tighten. If princess wants his waffles exactly right he should stop thinking those things and stop playing with his nipples. I know Bobby will have the exact right jelly Sam likes in the fridge, so the rest of perfect waffles is up to me. I won't ever be able to hear 'perfect'' again without getting hard.

Dean turns back to his cooking project, then looks over his shoulder at me, his bottom lip full, I know that he turned around to hide his erection: “Princess...” Dean says with mock slowness, eyebrows raised, trying to stop himself from laughing, “Have you ever thought of having your cock,” he pointedly looks at my crotch, “you know?” Dean makes a squeezing motion I think imitate the piercing gun.

Sam smiles and shakes his head at me: “If you want to pierce it you can just ask me.” Sam looks at his crotch: “I want you to...” Sam chews his bottom lip. I have to look back at the cooking or I'm going to end up jerking myself off in the kitchen. “Actually Dean...” I think he is about to be sarcastic but Sam is serious, looking out from under his bangs, Sam can make things a serious topic in a way that no one else can – and I wish he couldn't. “I want that. And I want it gone.” He moves a hand to his crotch. How am I meant to focus on this being serious? “I want to be smooth...There's a word for that at least.”

Dean raises his eyebrows at me, I feel bad for him, its so hard for him to keep his focus – but that's what you get for having balls, distracted by needing it.

Then Sam says: “Smoothie.” I can't fucking help it. Sam is going to be a...a...? That's so, so...really? Sam doesn't storm out of the room, he just waits for me to finish laughing. Sam probably predicted that I would crack up. Seriously? Does the universe hate Sam so much that...smoothie? Sam swallows, tight around the corners of his mouth, “It's not the right damn word – it's not about sex, I'm not a made up word, I'm not some perv with a dvd player's kink – it's not even a real word,” Sam doesn't shout, or get teary, he doesn't even get up – although he might be having some trouble walking today. “I'm not even smooth,” He runs a palm over his breasts – he is definitely trying to kill me, not that this would be a bad way to go - “I have these.” Please let those be staying. Please? Sam is still rolling his nipples under his palm one at a time, I see his ribs swell as he takes a deep breath: “I'm a adult man with breasts,” he pulls a nipple, still apparently fascinated, “no balls, and _soon_ ,” he emphasizes that word “I won't have a cock. I have fat on my hips and curve to my ass, I have a hard, defined body, I'm strong. I have no testosterone, I don't want what it did to my body. My body is my choice,” Sam looks across the room at me: “I'm going to do without a word.” I know him well enough that even though its a declaration he is still a little sad.

“Waffles! Dean!” Sam jerks me back to the kitchen. Good thing that Bobby doesn't have a smoke alarm.


	8. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ..and...

Friday morning, Sam and I are sitting side by side at a dinner—we somehow never got around to looking up a hunt. I watch him tapping away at his laptop, can't help smiling at how intent he looks as I watch him over the top of the paper that I long ago stopped reading. 

Dean gives up on the pretense of reading which he has been using as an excuse for watching me since he was in first grade. “Not a decent lead in all of South Dakota Sammy. What've you got?”

Sam glances up at me, as though he hasn't been sneaking looks at me over his laptop all this time, tries to sound as though we are just two guys chatting in a diner about their road trip, not two brothers who love each other hard, as though the world depended on it, and two men who have a secret that nearly got them killed a few days ago. Sam glances up: “I've been scanning Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska. A woman in Iowa fell 10,000 feet from an airplane and survived.” That sounds more 'That's Incredible' than, uh, 'Twilight Zone'—so I let Sam know as much. And I'm so right, so Sam agrees (he's much better at that than he was a week ago.) I remind him – just in case he forgot important crap – because, hey, it's not like we've slept in a few days, I remind him to not even look near Kansas. 

First Dean reminds me that we don't want to go to Kansas—really Dean, never occurred to me. Apparently it hasn't occurred to Dean that making a scene in a diner is not something that has worked out for us, and proceeds to slide a hand into my groin, what he must think is surreptitiously, and squeeze hard—turns out we both like hard, but now?

“Dean, fuck!” the other patrons look at us, Sam should know better than to make a scene in a diner—but the bitch face Sam makes makes the moment worth while. “Dean! Later, ok?” Sam hisses in a way that he thinks the other patrons can't hear us. “But in the meantime we got a lot of work to do Dean...and you know that.” Sam tries to look all huffy, but its hard to do with your lover's hand rubbing your crotch.

“Yeah all right.” Dean looks at me over his paper—still with intent. I get back to work because someone has to, and that someone doesn't appear to be Dean.

Sam is pretending to be absorbed in his work, yeah right, so I begin to rub him slowly. Seems to be working he's nearly groaning that cute (so damn awfully goddamn hot) 'uh hmmm,' sound, which I think he intended to sound warning. So much for 'eunuch calm'. Then – trying to sound all business – adds: “Man in Colorado, local man named Daniel Elkins, was found mauled in his home.”

That snaps Dean right to it: “Elkins?” his head tilts and his face squishes as he questions himself, “Elkins? I know that name.” I don't know it, but Dean is like a dog with a bone muttering to himself (and now that makes me feel excluded, great) 'Elkins...Elkins...Elkins.”

Sam summarizes the story: “Sounds like the police don't know what to think. At first they said it was some sort of bear attack and now, they've found some signs of robbery.”

Dean – now he's intentionally annoying me by ignoring me and pretending to be engrossed in Dad's journal, just 'uh-humming' me as though I'm his little brother and a plain old problem. He flicks through the pages: “There, check it out.” And of course he is right, and of course it is useful, and of course we should go. He hands the journal to me to me, and undeniably it could be the same man.

Dean loads us into the Impala, upbeat, humming tunelessly to himself—although he would just insist its me that's tone deaf, We head out, careful not to cross Kansas on our way to Colorado.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are really story notes, so forgive the length: 
> 
> Thank you first to my muse. I love you. Then thank you to my readers, if you made it all the way to here, I love you too. Thank you for the interaction, the kudos and comments, this story needed all the help I could get to keep writing, going back to comments reminded me that I should keep writing. Thank you also to all the authors who write castration fic, yep, I read it, all of it. Thank you particularly to wickedthoughts who has no idea how many times I have re-read These hands never clean; some people have comfort food, I have comfort fan-fic.
> 
> I started early writing about masculinity, I either succeed or failed at that. 
> 
> I found myself challenged by Sam's body, it took me forever to see Dean's perspective of Sam's body, I'm still struggling with Sam's point of view, no matter what he says he is also.
> 
> This story started as easy to write—after all I have a fairly serious castration kink—and turned all kinds of difficult because I wanted to know what being castrated meant to Sam, and why he did it in the first place, I wanted to know what Sam being castrated meant to Dean and his guilt, his need to protect Sam, and his need to be loved, and how Sam's castration this changed their family. One of the reasons I was drawn to SPN (other than the boys being so hot, and just how hot wouldn't they be without balls?) is that SPN – for me – is about family, and about friendship. Since I started out writing about castration I didn't know I was going to write about family, and about friendship, if I had know that I would have done things differently, particularly James and Melissa, who never did anything like what the story outline said they should, they both just got on with their own thing. I have never written OC's before, except in passing, a demon for decoration here or there, I was astonished at their independence. James I am curious about, there is a history there that left me reading about Kansas (I'm in love with Kansas, it's unrequited.) and the Plains Indians, and the Indian wars, and broken treaties. My blood runs cold at the level of brutality it took to establish white privileged in the American west. Melissa is the story I would write left to my own devices, I never told the readers the things she told me about herself, maybe one day there will be an appropriate place for that story. But family as it the core of this story. I hadn't intended to write Bobby as functionally the boy's father; I don't know if it is intentionally tied into Sam's infertility – does Sam choose infertility, he mentions wanting children, is that just something he has to accept as coming with castration - masculinity and fathering children. I wish I knew that.
> 
> Then, true confessions, our friend the horse. I manage barns when I've got my act together. I'm good at it, very good at it – and with that comes knowing the dark details. We all ward, at least those of us who know what we are doing. We deal with curses as part of 'things that happen' and we go to a great deal of effort to never let our clients know. Those of us who have done this long enough know that horses tell us things - I'm not insane, this is simply true. Few of us get to have a horse that is truly ours – a soul given, we take that, and they take back what they need. I'll write about that one day, or maybe Melissa will. The strawberry roan for three reasons: There ain't no horse that can't be rode, the ain't no rider can't be throwed, Oh that little strawberry roan. — I think that's traditional; and looking it up on google I know a completely different version that has been being recorded. Then the protagonist of Edward Abby's lonesome cowboy rode a strawberry roan, and my beloved T – the horse that taught me that selling your soul really didn't hurt that much – and the bastard I'll be riding the devil's herd on, there is only so much you can do for an App.
> 
> Also: I have started a story of Dean finishing Sam's castration, but it's so fucking sad you may not want to read it (and it might take a year and half to write anyhow.)
> 
> Thank you again for reading, thank you for kudos and comments, and a hundred thank you's to the people who make AO3 happen.


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